THE GIRL WHO LIVED INSIDE A POEM
Word Count: 327
She had always had a tendency towards drama so no one was surprised when she hid herself within a poem and would not come out.
She crawled into the second stanza late one night, her toes just dangling out the edges of an image. Lavender clouds and fern fingers slipped past her though she reached out and caught them by wisps. She’d twirl the colors around and around into a cone that she then licked off her thumb.
“It was inevitable,” one neighbor said, “her mother had been a sprite.”
“Oh and her father, a gargoyle if ever there was one,” said another.
And though it was true that her mother had balanced her days on a trapeze, that her father was a policeman and her sister a hermaphrodite, the real reason she escaped into a poem was because her heart had been broken. An evil dude, a guitar player in a hard rock band had captured her attention and she, a bit too innocent for his type of playing, was left strummed out and broken.
The idea that music–she herself played the piano and danced both tap and toe–would have seduced and caused her heartache like a plucked viola was devastating to her artistic nature. She grieved and carried on a while since no one died of the vapors anymore. Then she climbed inside the poem.
And so the poetry that people read now held within it other messages. Metaphor ran rampant and simile she deftly turned into unrelated nonsense. Alliteration led her to tumble tongue-twisters throughout a tercet. Those who sought out comfort and peaceful passage were instead trickered into consternation. Those who read for rhyme and reason were baffled by the unexpected hanging of enjambment. She giggled at their response.
She was mostly happy where she lived and wandered into gardens grown of prose and ivy, and in her darker times, she wore white ruffled gauzy gowns and cried by candlelight.
so many shades here…beautifully conceived and written. autobiographical? that penultimate paragraph! gorgeous!
Marcus, I believe that despite protest, poets and writers are very much hidden within their words. Thank you!
Ah, what a pretty way to begin my day! No poetry for me until my work is done, but this will keep me going….thank you, Susan
Carol, thank you so much! I love how the required daily writings encourage sticking my fingers into all different areas of language.
Lovely piece, Susan. Really enjoyed it.
Thank you, Marc. You know, you can still jump in on this project and play catch-up…
a lovely piece made from lovely sentences.
i like pieces that are built around this sort of loop.
well played.
Thanks, Stephen. I’m learning to let go of the traditional a bit more by reading some of the work here, yours included as an influence!
Wow, I love it. Don’t you love working with extended metaphor?
Yes, if that’s what it’s called. The style always makes me feel like a child telling her parents what happened today and why things aren’t quite as they should be.
Pingback: fifteen- | undread hundred
I really enjoyed reading this piece Susan, so dreamy and funny too. It reminded me that at one point when I was a teenager I wished I could slip into a picture and live there forever. {Although I am forever thankful today that I was not granted my wish}
Thank you Silvana! Don’t you agree that writers and artists likely all have the bit of escapism in them that opens us up to creating our own worlds?
Such a delightful little piece, Susan! I almost want to pinch her nose and give her a hug!
Thanks, Neha! She’s a part of all of us I think!