laugh. shiver. choke. die.

I opened the car door
and remembered those times in September
when we'd ride out to 722 with
Hillsong in the background
with the sun still up
there was always the newcarsmellA/CrunningleatherseatsYOUpickthenextsong
chasingcarsaroundinourhead
kind of thing
and in my mind, I had know him forever.

and tonight as he pulled off, I surrendered and returned to September
tightening my heartscrews and opening my mouth

I laughed as hard as I could
when he accelerated and mentioned the autobahn
I began to shiver
then choked. died right there.

from there I was gone, but
he did not notice.

I think he thought he had me.

I like this poem a lot, Chevy! I think you have some clarifying to do, but it moves nicely away from angsty teen love poetry.

I opened the car door
and remembered those times in September
when we'd ride out to 722 with
Hillsong in the background

722? If this is a geographical reference to something near where you live, cool, but please clarify a little. I wrote a poem where I mentioned the Platte... but for those who don't live in Nebraska, I tacked 'river' on there too.

there was always the newcarsmellA/CrunningleatherseatsYOUpickthenextsong
chasingcarsaroundinourhead

This doesn't do anything for the poem. Instead of just running words together, DESCRIBE the leather seats, the way your arm looks when you reach to turn the radio dial, that kind of thing. It's too impersonal this way. Help the reader not only understand what you're trying to say, but heck, but the reader in the back seat so he or she can witness first-hand what you feel.

and tonight as he pulled off, I surrendered and returned to September
tightening my heartscrews and opening my mouth

GOOD.

Overall, a great start. You just need to work on injecting emotion and a sense of place into it.
Happy revising!

P.S. "A Separate Peace" is an AWESOME book. I've never met anyone besides myself who liked it, so you're a welcome suprise!

I have to agree with Cicero. The running together of words is an over-used effect, methinks. I mean, I can see the effect you're trying to achieve -- you want to run things together so it tumbles out of the mouth. But the way you've written it makes it slightly unrealistic -- who can say those words that fast?

I love the ending though. It's funny in a morbid way.

newcarsmellA/CrunningleatherseatsYOUpickthenextsong
chasingcarsaroundinourhead

I sort of think this is alright, but you should seperate the words with hyphens so that you don't have to squint trying to figure out what it's saying. Also, maybe you should shorten to just three, four, or five words, and avoid putting a slash-thing (forgot what it's called) in there because that just confuses things when you're running words together.

I think there are some jagged transitions that I want to point out:

tightening my heartscrews and opening my mouth

I laughed as hard as I could

I'm not sure what happened here. You insert this beautiful two-line stanza, and then continue on as if it hadn't even happened.

then choked. died right there.

from there I was gone, but

After that blunt moment, too many words ruin the effect. I see that you understood that, but still, I think you could cut down. "from", for example, and "right there" is a bit useless.

Nice ending ---


Oh, and I back the "runningwordstogether" thing. It was overused.