Not just a dream.
A fairly basic and straightforward poem forged for the Poetry d'Amour 2020 Love Poem contest. The theme was love, and it could not exceed 40 lines in total. My first draft had 65 lines - so it was pretty difficult to dwindle it on down to 40. Hope you enjoy it.
A sweeping dress, it flailed naively,
The skin beneath, I caught so briefly.
Her eyes, eclectic, edge filled with lashes,
An honest beauty, brown speckled flashes.
Not a lump, not a swatch, not even a slither,
Of makeup to mar, make her image wither.
She strolled right by me, my senses livened,
A sudden surge of stress and anxiety ripens.
My muscles all constrict, fixed to the chair,
And by such apprehension, I am caught and ensnared.
But all that I desire, and all I rightly need,
Is to glance at her now and have all qualms concede.
I force control of my body, stand and ensue,
And this beautiful woman I finally pursue.
I catch her quite quickly, and announce my avowal,
Up close I feel her fairness, at least for now.
She smiles again, pursed lips shelter teeth,
A brashness and cheek, all over her sweeps.
Her hand flutters in, now resting on my elbow,
Before the words form: “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
And now I watch her, she melds into the sunrise,
A seraph I shall surely never scrape from my mind.
She falters, just slightly, and turns back around,
And with the tip of her finger, writes something in the ground.
Before too long, she has disappeared completely,
And I run to her digits, drawn in dirt quite discreetly.
Out with my phone, jot them in, and justly beam,
And pray that this encounter was not just a dream.
Later I would phone her, later she would reply,
Later our two lives would begin to unify.
Later we would remember, later we would reminisce,
On a chance to fall longingly in love, a chance that I almost missed.
Poetry is quite an interesting creative form; a lot of people fear its very existence. Fear, likely born out of an inability to empathise with the content. Or possibly because the structure and stylistic choices are too rigid in comparison to free-flowing prose fiction.
Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the reading. Leave a comment down below if you so wish - I would love to hear what you think.