Prose in Poetry Class

I had a stroke of inspiration in my 385 class one day.

 

I was lying down on my stomach. The forest didn’t look like what I would usually see in my prayers. Well, not exactly the same, really. In the middle of this dense forest was a clearing, and even though the sky above me was black, everything was illuminated in a turquoise glow. My white peasant blouse and skirt had turned turquoise from above and under me was my regular dark shadow. It was cold, I know that. I wasn’t shivering, but it was still cold.

 

I could hear voices. In the trees in back of me mostly. I was still lying on my stomach, in the loose, dry dirt under my body. I could feel my heart pulsing in my chest and maybe it was the only movement of life the dirt had in such a long time. I ran my fingers in the dust and watched it fall from my fingers. I know that if I had lain there long enough, I could have derived something wise out of those smooth grains. The voices behind me approached. I heard a man huff behind me.

 

“I’m here,” he said. Then sarcastically, “Does it please you?” I turned around and recognized him from my literature book from long ago. I threw dust at him.

 

“Eat my dust, Ernest[1],” I snapped, turning around and folding my arms onto the ground, settling my head on them. He came over to me and stopped at my bare feet. He bent down and began to trace the arch of my feet. I squirmed, recognizing his touch, the touch he had on my life, but now it was making me uncomfortable.

 

“So, where are you going?” he asked, and from what I could hear, he was smiling smugly. “Where are you going to go? Better question- how are you going to go?” I grimaced and pressed my forehead against my arms. I felt hands rest softly on my shoulders and I looked up. I smiled at her.

 

“What are you going to do?” she asked me. I shrugged.

 

“I don’t know, Sylvia[2],” I said, the sound of muse reaching my throat. “Aren’t I supposed to follow my heart?” The corners of her mouth rose up softly, but with little happiness.

 

“Yes, you are,” she said. I looked her straight in the eyes for a minute. It was so odd that the million happy memories in her eyes could form one big frown. Ernest’s fingers continued to trace the outline of my feet, making me want to laugh and scream at the same time, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to stop.

 

Looking forward was Sylvia’s home, deeper into the dark woods. There, I knew, she had a wood fire burning—she had no need for electricity or gas. I could see a few rectangular lights of her windows, and I could smell the fire from there. I’m sure she shared residence with happiness there.

 

If I had looked behind me, from where Ernest had come, I knew there was reveling—loud, ecstatic voices interrupted the majesty of the forest. Sleeping bags would be scattered on the ground, and trampled on from the other guests, and they probably wouldn’t even be used unless the owner of the sleeping bag was bringing a guest.

 

I know Ernest and Sylvia were waiting for me to make a choice. Go to his party or stay in Sylvia’s cottage? I needed my peace and quiet—if my neighbor and his guest are busy, how would I be able to sleep and go quietly insane? And what was my fate if I went to Sylvia’s cottage? I didn’t know how to live in a home like hers—whatever tools she had in the house were things I had never learned how to wield, and any grace that God gave me at birth disappeared any time I tried to live as Sylvia did.

 

“I don’t live there,” I said, motioning to Sylvia’s cottage finally. Turning to Ernest, and being as polite as I could, “And I can’t live there.” I finally stood up and dusted myself off. I looked up to the sky, and it quietly began to rain. What dust that was left on my clothes had melted off of me. Sylvia ran to her cottage to make sure her fire wouldn’t die and Ernest ran back to his group to convince them that the sky wasn’t falling. I stood in that clearing for a while, getting soaked, but I still was not cold. As soon as it started, it stopped raining. I wiggled my feet in the mud, making sure I still had them. I grabbed handfuls of the mud. I dropped the mud back onto the ground, and then I grabbed more handfuls of the mud and I made a giant heap out of the mud. The image in my mind guided my hands in what to do and where to do it. Before I knew it, I had constructed a huge medieval castle from the mud. From out of the lowest, lifeless substance on earth, I gave myself a place to live.

 

The sky poured on me again. The mud left on my hands dripped off of my skin and mixed back into the earth from hence it came. My castle had melted back into the ground. To my left, Sylvia’s cottage stood. To my right, Ernest’s guests complained that their drinks were watered down. I shrugged as I grabbed more handfuls again.

 

“I think a two story house fits me better anyhow,” I said.

 

                                                *            *            *            *

 

I know I was awake the entire time. I squinted at the florescent lights above me. My teacher continued to lecture as I crawled out of my head and back into my desk. It wasn’t that the poems weren’t interesting—they told me another world existed, and instead of waiting for my teacher to tell me what would be in that world, I let my mind run away with me. She was waiting for me in my book to wake up, I know. He was back at home, waiting for me to pay him a visit again. I looked at the page we were on. Yeah, my teacher and I were on the same page, and he was in what stanza? Not the first one, I’ll bet. I turned to my notebook sitting right next to my poetry book. No wonder my teacher didn’t get mad at me—I had been writing in my notebook the entire time.

 

I read what I wrote, and I realized that neither Sylvia or Ernest would fully comprehend what I wrote. It was like she spoke French, and he Italian, and I wrote half in each. There was no way I could organize my heart on this paper into stanzas or find rhymes for any of it. My writing was way too dense to be called a story—something that would make the likes of Lorca and Márquez feel inarticulate. A poet trapped in a story writer’s body. But I guess you can’t really call me a poet anyway—I’m only twenty.

---

[1] Ernest Hemingway

[2] Sylvia Plath

 

 

Author's Note

...Somebody please help me.

Reviews

[ladybug]

i thought it was very good

[sorentense]

Hm.... That's an interesting sort of problem.

First, your prose isn't all that dense. It's more solid than some I've read, but it's definitely digestible (sorry for the food words, they're what I can think of). I like how the character is torn between the alternatives offered - although I forget who Ernest Hemingway is and do not recall hearing the name Sarah Plath before.

As for having poetry and prose mix on you, well, it happens to all of us. For example, particularly when I'm upset, I speak and/or write completely in poetic language. Which, believe me, can sound pretty stupid. I don't think there's a cure for this inability to keep the two distinct, but let me know if you find one.