Realist Poem

Sitting outside the waiting room
The woman at the front desk seems a bit annoyed
Understandable, everything must run smoothly
The chairs are stiff and gray
The walls are decorated brightly, orange and yellow
With inspirational quotes
In white text. I sit
Bundled up in my coat
A purple scarf my friend knitted me
And a hat from a store.

My aunt is antsy to get out
She shows a picture of her dog
She's been in this kind of place before
And doesn't care to relive it
But she hides behind a smile on her face.

My grandmother appears
Walking slowly, but firmly
She tells me to follow her
That I should see this for myself
That it would be good for me.

When I go back,
My grandfather is in a chair, with tubes sticking out
I think that he's happy to see me
But he'd probably be happy to see anyone
He smiles
He gets up and hugs me
When I was little he'd squeeze so tightly I'd laugh
But today I'm the one squeezing
His strength is faded
I have to be strong.

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 5, 2018 at 5:47 AM

    I like that your poem has a journey to it. It isn't completely revealed to the reader what's happening until the very end. You talk about your aunt and her dog, making the reader think its a vet's office so the end is a bit of a twist. The beginning has a lot of descriptive imagery that's really nice and I would've like to have seen a little more of that in the end of the poem too.

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  2. UnknownFebruary 5, 2018 at 7:04 AM

    I appreciate the way you have made layers to the poem, regarding what you show and what is left unsaid. In some ways I feel the imagery sets up the space and the feeling of being in such a place, that tries so hard to be positive but at the very deep parts of the space, is pain and the need for strength to be passes along from person to person. I think the imagery in the last stanza is not lacking that much, and that maybe adding more imagery could take away from its impactful meaning.

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