Alchera #26: The Sixth Summer



Put yourself in an unfavorable situation--perhaps you're in the middle of a break-up with someone you love, your job is in jeopardy, or maybe you're even saying your final words at a loved one's funeral. Write a poem with interchanging lines of speech and thought. Your first line should be what you're saying out loud and the second line should be what you're thinking (this line should either be in a different color or, preferably, in italics). The situation in which you find yourself is up to you, but remember it should generally be an adverse one.


To this very place I shall run back
(Atalanta on winged feet),
And find you through warm, salty air
(Moist from my own burning tears)
On the sixth
(Sixth?)
Summer.

From other arms I'll be wrenched
(Yours in my dreams, thin air),
After two thousand one hundred ninety
(Billion)
Days
(Of madness).

You said distance would be poison
(I've drunk it all!),
You said days would drip like acid
(It's rained on me!),
You said—
(I am nothing but ruins).

Thus, I shall turn around
(Three hundred sixty degrees),
To live my life, and you, yours
(Or to crumble and fester);
Until
(Never)
The sixth
(Never, ever)
Summer
(Yes, never).