There is silence.
Her phone rings;
"You coming out, yeah?"
Yeah,
"Definitely this time, yeah?"
Yeah,
"Ok, stay on the phone."
She steps outside,
A leaf falls.
I'm outside
"Good"
She walks to the crossing,
Thoughts crowd in:
A cat gets let out for the night,
He sees a bird across the road -
"You still there, yeah?"
Yeah
She presses the button,
Her chest feels tight.
She fiddles with her keys.
The cat starts to walk across the road. -
"You're doing really well, you know that, Yeah?"
Beeps ring out,
The lights are green,
She starts to cross.
1 , 2 , 1 , 2
Her heart beats fast.
-
A car horn shatters the darkness,
Her pulse stops.
It was just a commuter,
She walks back to the pavement.
"What was that? You ok?"
Yeah
A car screeches
It didn't see the cats big yellow eyes
A leaf falls, dead
I'm going back inside.
"Don't go back inside"
I'm going back inside
"Damn it, you sure, yeah?"
Yeah
"Maybe next time?"
Yeah
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,607 Literary Works • 673,549 Reviews
Really good poem about how downright crippling Agoraphobia can be (I have social anxiety myself, but my friend is agoraphobic.) The title suits it well and I love the imagery and how the poem is structured, special props on the use of repetition, it fits brilliantly. The concept is excellent and well executed. Great poem, really well done
Thanks for sharing this poem about agoraphobia-literally meaning fear of the marketplace, in Greek = agora. This fear can cripple a person because it causes social isolation. There is drama here as a human struggles against an inner obstacle. The agoraphobic is portrayed as trying to overcome her fears while in communication with someone who seems to be encouraging her. I like the 1,2,1,2 to convey her concentrated determination.
Suggestions:
All dialogue gets [“”] tags.
The repeated use of "yeah" reminds me of the film Fargo where the Protagonists and other residents of the Michigan area keep communicating in a very rudimentary humorous way.
Reducing the repetition of the word “yeah” would avoid having the poem convey a humorous tone to some readers
If a person’s pulse stops he or she is dead. So I would suggest describing the reaction differently.
example: “her pulse falters, pauses, wavers, flutters, hesitates,....”
“It sees a bird” Mention of gender made me pause to ponder why.
“”the light is green” She is crossing one street, right?
“pavement?” Was she on an unpaved dirt road? If not then “sidewalk” is better.
Hi, this is really helpful but I'm English and the term 'the lights' is used to refer to one set of crossing lights and we call 'sidewalks' 'pavements'. But otherwise this really helps.
Thanks for the explanation. So if just the green light goes on it is said that the lights went on?
yup, it's a bit weird
Great title for the piece. Is the narrator agoraphobic or does she have obsessive-compulsive disorder? I enjoy the repetition of "yeah" and the imagery of the cat's big yellow eyes. The significance of color and sound to the way the narrator interacts with her environment, and how the environment determines the way she moves about her life. The switch from third to first person narration at the end is intriguing. Intentional? Like the first 3/4 of the poem, the speaker is having an out of body experience by walking outside her house.
Thanks for sharing this little slice,
-Dream