highbeams

i'm trying to sleep but the neighbors like to mock me.

The lights claw my ceiling
as the car fades away -- its engine causing a fuss.
Its rusty nuts and bolts rattle in my ears
and I can’t help but to curl myself in a ball.
I try to sleep,
but the lights still scratch my walls,
so I’ll watch them fade
like our conversations.

Reviews

[Michael G. Smith]

Love last two lines; genius metaphor. I got this because there's a house that sits directly from a road I travel in my neighborhood. My headlights hit directly on a bedroom window, but they have blocked out the glass.

[Misery]

Lights clawing and lights scratching, very original pairing of these words. Well done.
Your experiences concerning neighbors are not dissimilar to my own.
"I wish that I lived beside - neighbors made of butterflies." Sage, you have my empathy in extremis.

[Kelly Scheppers]

I used to live in a basement apartment on a dead end street. People would often come down it, and make a U turn...reflecting their headlights across my ceiling. Hmm, I've never thought about that since then...

"I try to sleep,
but the lights still scratch my walls..."

Nicely done, Sage!



My best,
Kelly

[Clockwork]

The part about the car being rusty is really vivid. You create a nice image there, but also infuse the sound of the car, and the response that you have to those things. That last line in the poem made me think that this poem may be about a lover or a lost loved one who died in a car accident. I think that line carries the loss and has that tone of longing. Also, the thought of watching conversations fade is an interesting one. That detail makes me think that our speaker has replayed the images from their last time together. Well done here, Sage.