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Poem: Stumbling Over Sarah
I felt like being tragic.
Overall, I'm kind of happy with it, though there are a lot of things that need changing. The third stanza is almost completely bunk, but eh...I've been having problems with ending poems well.
****************************
Stumbling Over Sarah
"Sarah!"
He screamed this over and over
on the corner of Allendale and West,
startling the early morning joggers who circled around him
because he made them uncomfortable.
He kept screaming until he lost his voice
and then he whispered, over and over,
until the street got dark and his sob-like shivers
took the form of words from him.
Then, he thought her name, over and over,
incanting a summons he half-thought, half-dreamed
she would answer.
But she never came.
Later, after he had been visited by dew
and the sunlight relieved the streetlamps,
after his legs did not feel frozen anymore,
he stumbled across the sunrise,
wiping away some saliva that had collected on his chin.
Eating did not exist anymore
and the diner he stumbled into was a carnival
of life and sound and autumn grease
that had been something alien for the past few months.
Here, coffee was made for watching cream cloud
and eggs were made for getting cold
because they achieved a texture that held his attention.
Sometimes he would imagine meeting her all over again
in this very same booth
and he would think, "Ah, a girl who gets those jokes!"
and "She hunts for hallucinations in the sunrise, too!"
and her hair would be so beautiful under cold sun and diner-lights;
she would remind him of his favorite sweater
and it would hurt so bad
he woulc catch himself crying and wanting to curl,
and his stomach would tell him
"You shouldn't have tried that egg."
At last, he would admit defeat
and stumble once more to sleep off a hangover
that just stayed with him.
His world was one of microvision,
a scent of oranges in a dumpster
or a flash of lint on green fabric.
Each had its monsters and its meaning,
more than he bargained for,
all parading down his head until the vertigo came
and he felt drunk once more.
These things dogged him until he was weary
and some more until his throat was cracked
and still more until none of that mattered:
he would run and they would chase him,
and that was the way of things.
Once in a while, his feet would take him back
to Allendale and West,
where a window shade held a forbidden oasis.
Once in a while, he incanted her name
and she would never come.
And he would stumble, and stumble, and stumble...
Overall, I'm kind of happy with it, though there are a lot of things that need changing. The third stanza is almost completely bunk, but eh...I've been having problems with ending poems well.
****************************
Stumbling Over Sarah
"Sarah!"
He screamed this over and over
on the corner of Allendale and West,
startling the early morning joggers who circled around him
because he made them uncomfortable.
He kept screaming until he lost his voice
and then he whispered, over and over,
until the street got dark and his sob-like shivers
took the form of words from him.
Then, he thought her name, over and over,
incanting a summons he half-thought, half-dreamed
she would answer.
But she never came.
Later, after he had been visited by dew
and the sunlight relieved the streetlamps,
after his legs did not feel frozen anymore,
he stumbled across the sunrise,
wiping away some saliva that had collected on his chin.
Eating did not exist anymore
and the diner he stumbled into was a carnival
of life and sound and autumn grease
that had been something alien for the past few months.
Here, coffee was made for watching cream cloud
and eggs were made for getting cold
because they achieved a texture that held his attention.
Sometimes he would imagine meeting her all over again
in this very same booth
and he would think, "Ah, a girl who gets those jokes!"
and "She hunts for hallucinations in the sunrise, too!"
and her hair would be so beautiful under cold sun and diner-lights;
she would remind him of his favorite sweater
and it would hurt so bad
he woulc catch himself crying and wanting to curl,
and his stomach would tell him
"You shouldn't have tried that egg."
At last, he would admit defeat
and stumble once more to sleep off a hangover
that just stayed with him.
His world was one of microvision,
a scent of oranges in a dumpster
or a flash of lint on green fabric.
Each had its monsters and its meaning,
more than he bargained for,
all parading down his head until the vertigo came
and he felt drunk once more.
These things dogged him until he was weary
and some more until his throat was cracked
and still more until none of that mattered:
he would run and they would chase him,
and that was the way of things.
Once in a while, his feet would take him back
to Allendale and West,
where a window shade held a forbidden oasis.
Once in a while, he incanted her name
and she would never come.
And he would stumble, and stumble, and stumble...