This poem from What Happens in New York came out of nowhere. I was in the mood to write a poem, and thinking about Fayth.
And I ended up combining the two.
I’m hoping to include more poetry in future stories from the series, and also eventually release a book of poems tied to it.
A lot of the characters are poets/songwriters, so it’s not a far stretch. It also allows me to include my love of poetry with my fiction.
The poem happens on Day 8 of their holiday, but it doesn’t contain any spoilers about what happens in their holiday.
Dreaming focuses on what happens before the novel—there’s no details here you can’t find in the blurb.
Nevertheless, if you want to avoid reading it before you read the book, don’t read ahead. If you want a little something to whet your appetite, keep reading…
Dreaming
My mother always told me to chase my dreams
but I learned very recently that that doesn’t mean
what you think it does, when you choose what you think is love
over a life you don’t realise you deserve
and the love you thought you had turns very quickly into a curse
because the man you married
thinks it’s your job to carry
Him. He doesn’t want a wife,
or someone with whom he can share his life,
he wants a maid:
someone too weak to fight back when he goes and gets laid
by a total stranger while on holiday in Shagaluf
and you’re at home crying because life is so tough
watching your mother’s coffin sink into the ground
distraught faces all around
telling you how sorry they are, how she didn’t deserve this,
and all you can think is that life is shit:
there was nothing she could do to avoid that oil slick
on the road, and that’s what makes it even worse
and makes you wonder if you’re cursed
while the tears run like streams
down your face when you realise how wrong you’ve been
and the life you worked towards
wasn’t worth the trouble it caused.
Hear me read ‘Dreaming’ over on Anchor!
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