She told me to come pick her up At 3 in the morning With my mom’s gray Cadillac That stank with faint traces of cigarettes So I drove and drove down past that last lane Away from the lives and lights of the city Into the complete darkness of dreary streets Where people silently scream And no one comes running ‘Cause they’re already running from life When headlamp light shines on her She’s leaning with one leg bent On a broken concrete wall inside chain-link fence Has a Hollister white jacket on her back And teared-up jeans with fishnet stockings on her legs With knee high boots that click clack As she takes a step She walks over to the Cadillac Yanks the shotgun door open Then takes a seat inside On top of the plastic cups and wrappers And quickly shuts the door To block the drone of the outside night Red handprints litter her bare skin Dried up blood is stuck under her black nails She keeps staring out the window At dull scenery passing by At the dead sky At the flashing film inside her mind Her gaze is somewhere faraway But her eyes Are still the same, determined, cold steel gray And we stay silent all the way Back to the comatose, gross buildings we always see Until she whispers To something, somewhere out in the world But it never passes her lips
For one of my monthly meetings with Davia, we tried to write poems inspired by photos. This was one of those poems. For this piece, the photo had a girl walking on the road in the middle of nowhere as yellow lights approached her, which made me immediately think of a car. Her right hand is also held up to her ear as if she were making a call, and this detail inspired the start of my piece.
Carolyn Zheng is a freshman from Massachusetts who hopes to one day be an author. She loves band, math, Spanish…
Visit Profile