Words to Experience

By Courtney Hope Wilder

A book of poetry and prose, this book makes you feel something. Dive into the human experience as you journey through 9 years of growth, grief, breaking, love, healing, and motherhood. The journey inside of this cover will make you laugh, cry, reflect, ponder and access the deep emotional core inside of you that you didn't even know was there, w

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seeking Wilder
• Release date: Sep 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645515275

Book preview

Words of Advance Praise

"Absolutely breathtaking. Courtney’s words are powerful, insightful & honest. She will take your breath away with her Words to Experience. I couldn’t put it down. I held on to every word and story. I felt joy, sadness, heartache, grief, happiness, hope and I felt connected to myself. Forever grateful to experience Courtney in the flesh and now with her words" – Heidi Anderson, Radio & TV personality, author, & Mum to Memphis

Everything Courtney does is magic, but this book is a masterpiece. Inspiring, enthralling, emotional, truthful… it will leave you feeling re-connected back to what truly matters and excited for what’s to come. – Steph Gorton, The Steph Gorton Show podcast host

Courtney is a wordsmith; I cried within seconds of reading the first page. The journey inside of this cover will make you laugh, cry, reflect, ponder and access the deep emotional core inside of you that you didn’t even know was there, waiting to be reached. It is more than a book, it is an emotional release and a deep dive into the depths of the human psyche. – Breanna Hunter, Writer, and Miss Mindset podcast host

"For almost ten years, I have been reading these words as they were written. Now, you hold in your hands Courtney’s first book. I have always admired and enjoyed her equal, open enthusiasm for shadows and light, her unerring honesty and ability to change. This is a book of transformations that delights in life and language. Where there is grief, there is also deep love, and good humour. Enjoy." – Sabian Wilde, Writer

This book is for every soul who discovers a portion of themselves in these words, may they remind you that you are never truly experiencing anything alone.

Words to Experience

Courtney Hope Wilder

Copyright © 2022 by Courtney Hope Wilder

First Printing, 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted under the Copyright Act.

Edited by Sabian Wilde

Cover Design by Melissa Gouw Designs

Book Design by HMDpublishing

Author photo by Jasmine Skye Photography

ISBN:978-0-6455152-4-4 (paperback)

ISBN:978-0-6455152-7-5 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-0-6455152-8-2 (hardback)

How to read this book

A journey of experiences, the following words are split into six main themes. Compiled (almost) chronologically within their themes, this author hopes that by reading these words, you bear witness to the growth and transformation that nine years of love, heartache, grief, learning, unlearning, healing, and motherhood brings.

I hope you will become intrigued in the journey of your own adventure.

Head to page 276 for an index of emotions the following words may inspire, for there is nothing sweeter than finding a poem or prose that matches the experience you are going through at the time.

Contents

Becoming

BREAKING

GRIEF

LOVE

HEALING

MOTHERHOOD

Introduction

The journey of Words to Experience began nine years ago, on my twenty third birthday. First making their home within a blog titled Clinically Slutty, I grew up among these words.

Earlier this year I was reading over my past writings, poring over the words that have poured out of me over the past nine years. I marvelled at the way everything has changed, how many phases I have moved through, and how transformation has been my only consistency.

I fell in love all over again, with the portions of soul that expressed themselves through my words. I revelled in delight at all the versions of myself that live within me.

For I was never meant for certainty, not designed to fit a label, I have never been someone you can easily explain. I have spent most of my life dancing between the dark depths of my soul and shining my light through my shadow side.

Now, as you begin this journey to experience my writings, as you see this glimpse into my past, I am sure you will dub me Queen of Contradictions, ambivalent in nature, as many have before. You will see I found comfort in being both the virgin and the whore, every step I’ve ever made has been in polarity.

So yes, I may be as forever changing as the sea. But could you ever stop loving the moon, even though it constantly changes the tides?

Loving myself came through loving my polarity, owning my contradictions, and revelling in my ambivalence.

For I was never made to be contained.

Becoming

23 is going to be the year I avoid complicated men

He’s not my type, but none of them are

I tell myself this as I lay in the bed of a man with too many complications to count.

There are no walls, giving affection freely he finds no shame in wrapping me up in his arms, and whispering secrets into my ear, as I attempt to escape this intimacy with sleep.

Freshly separated from the marriage bed, he is yet to learn that these moments aren’t usually shared with someone you met only a few hours earlier.

I wait for the one-night-stand awkwardness to arrive. It never does.

A few days later I find myself back in his bed. I’m used to his whispers now. The way he holds me and fills me up with stories of his life. I find myself allowing my own secrets to come flooding out in whispers.

He is an army boy, trained to read people, to draw them out, and I fall for every trick.

He’s been on my mind as of late

There is not one part of me that doubts

he was my soulmate.

He opened me up

tore down the walls I spent years building

sure he left me broken

but cracked wide open.

Every time they ask about ‘us’ I say

When we were good it was sickeningly good

the couple who caught your eye in the street

who radiated adoration and joy

the seemingly ‘perfect match’.

But when we were bad, it was an absolute disaster.

We destroyed each other more many times,

than I ever wish to admit.

Money doesn’t burn a hole in my pocket. Lingerie does.

There is a Sex and the City quote that says,

‘sex is just an exchange of power’

I must admit I feel at my most powerful

in lingerie and high heels.

Please tell me if I’m wrong

but there is nothing quite like the feeling of putting on a matching pair of bra and panties, sliding on thigh high stockings, attaching them to your garter.

There is nothing quite like the absolute power and confidence that wearing only lingerie and high heels gives you.

At that moment it is not about looking good for anyone else; it’s about loving your body.

Even if it’s just for a split second, that feeling of being completely infatuated with how great you really look in so little is so powerful it can leave you buzzing for hours.

I dream of when I feel as confident in clothes as I do naked.

My own Mr Big

I said to myself I wouldn’t write about him,

but I can hardly focus on anything else.

He does this though. He fills my head and swims through my memories, he is scattered all through my past. I see his marks stitched into the fabric of my mind.

He has been a fixed point in time for the past seven years

hardly changing and always there.

I run circles around him. I build mazes and towers and yet he still finds a way inside. How many times have I cut him from my life, only to go running full speed to grasp at the rope pulling him close to me once again.

He is unattainable and sits atop the pedestal

I built for him all those years ago.

Was he worth it?

The agonizing adoration I had for a man

who has broken my heart more times than I dare say

I want to believe he loved me

that what we had was strong and real

and worth every pit in my stomach

every moment of all consuming grief.

I immediately thought of him when I first read Bright Star by John Keats.

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

Would I ever trade those moments?

Tears streaming down my face as the words

I love you came from his lips.

I had no idea when I became so hopelessly consumed

by the grief that my love for him brought

he neither was, nor would, ever be mine

and I was drowning.

The sweetest grief is the one that comes from love.

When without realising it

you have given yourself so completely over to someone

that they have the power to be the light

or the darkness in your day.

When I realised I had given him that power, I changed my number and cut him from my life. I needed to detach myself from him, let the murky, damaging water drain from my mind.

He says I twist his words

I say he twists his memories

our accounts of events never match

words are misconstrued

and I am left empty

and a little more broken. 

After six years I finally had him in my bed. I tried to suppress the thoughts of forever that flooded every corner of my mind. After a month I was completely drained.

He said I had ‘misinterpreted’ his words again.

The pedestal crashed below him

and I saw him for what he was

just a boy who promised forever

and couldn’t give a day.

The man I loved didn’t exist.

I had fallen for his words

when I should have been looking at his actions. 

He’s just a boy and I’m just a girl who is tired of waiting.

I am a walking contradiction

He reads me like a book