Published March 11, 2007
"Hold out your hand."
"Why?"
"I want to do something."
"Well, what the heck do you
want to do with my hand?"
"You have to trust me.
Do you?"
What kind of question is that?
Makes me nervous.
"First, tell me what the teabag is for."
The new kid grins. "It's not a teabag."
"Come again?"
"It's not a teabag."
What?
"You're insane!
Of course it's a teabag!"
"But it's not."
"What else could it possibly be?"
"It's a rocket."
"No, it's not.
It's a teabag."
"It's a rocket. Really."
I try really hard to see a rocket.
It's not there.
"Then prove it."
"Prove what?"
"That it's a rocket."
My friend grins
And opens the bright-orange
packet of tea.
Lo and behold!
A teabag!
"See? A rocket!"
"You're crazy!"
My friend tears off the string.
Opens the teabag.
Pours the tea into the planter.
Unfolds and tears it in half.
Displays one half proudly.
"A rocket."
I'm starting to wonder if
The new kid on the block
Is crazy.
"It's half of an empty teabag."
"Hold out your hand, and I will
Show you a rocket."
Rolling my eyes,
I hold my hand out.
"Flatter.
It has to be really flat."
"Like that?"
"Yeah."
My friend places the teabag on end
In my palm.
I still don't see a rocket.
The new kid pulls out
A lighter.
I watch it warily.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to light it on fire."
"You lunatic!"
"Hold your hand back out!"
"No! If there's going to be
A burning teabag--"
"Rocket."
"Whatever! Whether it's a
Rocket or a teabag, I don't want it
On fire in my hand!"
And that darn question again.
"Do you trust me?"
Sigh.
"Of course I trust you.
You know I do."
"Then hold out your hand.
Good."
The teabag is back on my hand.
"Now, whatever you do,
do not pull away!
If you do, we'll have a nice little fire
on your front lawn."
And if I don't pull away,
We'll have a nice little fire
on my arm.
Brilliant.
But I do trust the kid.
Deep down, despite my jibes...
"Whatever. Just get it over with."
A small flame leaps on the top of
The blue lighter.
My heart leaps with it.
My friend sets it to the
Top of the teabag.
It burns fast.
Like a fuse.
Except faster.
It's millimeters from
My hand now.
I can feel its hungry heat.
It's way too close!
Way too close for comfort!
Just before I pull away...
Fwoom!
The teabag shoots up into the air
Like a rocket.
My friend laughs as I watch
The teabag's flight.
I wanted to take that teabag
and press it into the pages of my scrapbook.
But the time it landed,
it was nothing but ash.
But still, whenever birthdays or
Christmas (Hanukkah for her)
comes our way,
every gift we give each other
has a bright orange
Rocket
Taped to the wrapping.
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139,585 Literary Works • 672,611 Reviews
umm.. more like a story oppose to a poem.. call it prose may i?
yeah, pretty tight trick with the tea-bag, huh?
However, I agree with what everyone else said. This is an indented story. A very good story, and a very good poem, but really, it would be better prose.
Don't tell Robert this. He'll light the teabag on fire and then some :O
Anyway. I thought this was really cool. The ending, I thought, was very good.
[Quote: Snoink said:]
This seems like a story put with indents. So basically, it's a sheep in wolf's clothing.
[endquote]
Have you read "Valentine for Earnest Mann"?
Story. Indented story.
I think you're fine, thoug it would make a great story...
It might have been better as prose, I'm not sure...
A few grammatical errors (which may well have been typos)
I think you meant to have a comma after "Well".
Capitalize the first letter of a sentence. "Do you?"
"Your" is the possessive form of "you." What you are trying to say is "You are." The contraction for "You are" is "you're."
See above comment.
After"planter" and "half," you want to put in commas, not periods.
I think you can use "crazy" instead of "schizophrenic," even though schizophrenic is a cooler word. Schizophrenic means multiple personalities, or you see and hear people who aren't there. "Crazy" would be a much better description for someone who thinks she can make a rocket out of a teabag (even though you soon prove that it can be done).
Capitalize the first letter of a sentence, and, tempting as it may be, don't capitalize random words because they start a new line. Use a lower case "s" in "show."
See above comment about random capitalization.
See above.
...
There are so many more like this, I'll let you find them.
Actually, I've decided I like it, but some of the verses, you didn't capitalize the first word of every line. It all has to be the same, so if the first word of every line is capitalized in one stanza, it better be the same in all the rest.
"It's" means "It is." It is a contraction. You want the possessive form of "it," which is "its."
But by the time it landed...
In the third line, you use "comes," which is the form of the verb "to come" in the third person singular. That is, the he/she/it form. Birthdays, Christmas (Hannukah) is a plural subject. You want to use the third person plural form (the they form) of the verb "to come," which is "come."
Taped to the wrapping.
I liked it, it's a great story about learning to trust your friend.
Oooh! I love it!
Wonderful! The dialog was snappy and simple, the flow was swift, and the story had its share of suspense. I felt myself wondering if her hand would catch on fire.
By the bye, on that last line, when you said 'tapped' did you mean 'taped'?
Just wondering.
Well done! More! More!
All the best,
Goldie
I liked the dialouge..........it worked well to create suspense and a little 'ahh' couldn't help but escape me when i finished reading it. However i agree with Snoink, it could have been formatted better.
That isn't too important though.
I really liked the simplicity of the piece.......well done.
Alainna
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This seems like a story put with indents. So basically, it's a sheep in wolf's clothing.
Put it in regular format and don't be afraid! Just because punctuation is hard to follow doesn't mean it can't be done. 