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  • Writer's pictureerika

goodbye to the dancer: a poem

smack!

something caught my attention.

there it was again.

something white whizzed past.

there it was again.


whoosh!

a closer look and then i saw.

it was light.

it was swift.

a dancer abruptly leaping through the air.


i gasped,

as i shadowed it silently with my eyes.

a truck had run over it.

i gasped again,

as it flew from underneath the truck, unscathed.


i peered,

watching it steadily go away.

i peered,

seeing it hit a van’s windshield.

but again, it continued its journey, unscathed.


almost there

and then it dropped.

the ground became its resting place.

it glided across the rough bottom, resting awhile.

after catching its breath, the act began one more time.


my eyes were twinkling as i glanced around.

staring at me beneath his mask, an old man’s eyes were twinkling.

it seemed that i was staring at him, but i was looking straight ahead.

that straight line of vision brought amusement to my face.

my vision traced the dancer’s route.


sliding under cars,

jumping above lorries,

petting the bushes,

following the wind,

it brought much activity to an everyday scene.


busy road.

busy pedestrians.

loud chattering.

loud honking.

the traffic light turned green.


as i crossed the road,

my eyes trailed the dancer.

and then i gasped.

one last slither under a vehicle and it was gone.

it stopped flying.


i gazed forlornly at the solemn sight.

i do not know if anyone saw the same thing for that one minute.

i turned my gaze towards the people rushing here and there.

they seemed oblivious—

they indeed had not seen what i saw.


i shifted my gaze yet again.

lifeless.

limply body.

i whispered in my head,

“goodbye plastic bag.”

 

explanation of this poem

so much freestyling that it's hard to tell if goodbye to the dancer is a poem or a story. i guess it can be both. it was intended to be a story with an application behind it. as you can tell, it did not work out.

my mom was the one who gave me the idea. i did not ask for a topic to write, so why would she ask me to write a story of this?

because i witnessed this account.

my mom and i were waiting for the traffic light. we were standing by the side of the road next to the "victoria st." signage. imagine both sides of the road filled with people and cars racing past us. and then imagine a white plastic bag floating in the middle lane. and imagine this too: an old man with twinkling eyes standing diagonally opposite of me, watching me as i watched the plastic bag. i did not take this picture, i got it off the internet. it is not exact to what i saw, but i wanted to give y'all a slight picture of that 1 minute scene.

while crossing the road, i saw the plastic bag breathe its last. after crossing the road, i then explained what i saw to my mom. she immediately told me to write a story.

so at 10:45 p.m., i opened a blank word document, with the intention of writing a story. i started out a few lines but deleted everything. my story seemed more poetic than story-like. i also was not a big fan of writing stories so i steered my lines into a poem. 15 minutes later, i looked at it, loving every character.

i'm sure everyone has seen a random plastic bag wandering along the roads. i have definitely seen it many times. somehow, this incident caught my attention, and i'm actually glad it did. i came across this quote which says, "we sometimes underestimate the influence of little things- Charles W.C." how true is this. a plastic bag is a little thing. i would not have thought that i could write a poem based on a flying plastic bag. but yet, this plastic bag influenced me, giving birth to goodbye to the dancer.









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