Day 19: Our (optional) prompt for the day takes it cue from Brady’s suggestion that erasure/word banks can allow for compelling repetitive effects. Today we challenge you to write a paragraph that briefly recounts a story, describes the scene outside your window, or even gives directions from your house to the grocery store. Now try erasing words from this paragraph to create a poem or, alternatively, use the words of your paragraph to build a new poem.

My paragraph:  Later in the evening we had to attend the reception where we were asked to dance after the cake cutting and speech. I danced like crazy, Yes you read it right, I DANCED. You might think how the hell did I dance in the night when I cried so much in the morning, how I smiled, how I had fun when my parents were lying on a bed in the hospital. Go on, You can judge me like others too, but my lord knows the truth. Yes, I had never in my life danced like that before, I danced for almost two hours on the floor with a fake smile hiding my tears, my pain, my burden, my suffering, my insecurities, my fear, my loneliness, my helplessness from everyone while I danced screaming loudly and crying inside my heart. Yes, there was a moment when my tears rolled down my cheeks having no control, I stepped back for a minute dancing, hiding those tears from everyone (thank god nobody caught me in tears) and came back on the floor again with the fake smile doing the thumkas on the Bollywood songs. Dance was a magical medicine for me, that night DANCING helped me overcome all those emotions; releasing my frustration giving me more strength to face tomorrow’s new challenges with a fake smile in-front of my parents the next day in the hospital.

Dance!

I cried in the morning,
My parents on bed in the hospital,
Night,
In the reception,
For two hours I danced like crazy.

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