Hello!
While I have read Everyday by Mike McGee a few times before, I did not get the inspiration for my own line “drop coins into the hollows of my knees and turn me into a wishing well” from his poem. I don’t consider those two lines, from my poem and his, to be similar enough at all. The inspiration for my own line about coins/wishing wells was something that came from my own brain, not from his writing. As you probably know, coincidences happen often in writing, and nothing is really entirely original because we are continually inspired by others’ work. So that line was in no way taken from Mike McGee’s work. The lines are really not even similar at all except for the words “coins” and “wishes/wishing.”
As for the line “I’m sorry we mistook emotional manipulation for love,” it is, I agree, too similar to Warsan Shire’s “we emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.” I’ve read her 34 excuses for why we failed at love poem many times, and my own line about emotional manipulation must have unconsciously come from hers. I would never intentionally steal or borrow lines from another writer, and I agree with you 100% that those two lines are far too similar to one another.
What must have happened is that I read Warsan’s poem so many times that I unknowingly incorporated her idea of emotional manipulation into my own poem. I’ve heard that this happens to a lot of writers, and it is never intentional.
I have identified my own poem in which the line, “We mistook emotional manipulation for love” appears, and I removed it immediately. You can double check for yourself. I’m very sorry for that similarity; it was never intentional, and I’m grateful that you pointed it out, otherwise I never would have realized it.
So thank you for messaging me. I’m glad that you were honest and concerned. It makes me happy to know that you’re someone who cares about the integrity of writing.
I hope my explanation makes sense to you and satisfied you. Please let me know if you still don’t quite understand it. And I hope you realize the fact that I published this to my blog for all to see means that I am an honest writer who is completely against plagiarism and would never take from another’s work intentionally.
Thank you for being a faithful reader of my work!