By: Aricka Foreman

From: Please Excuse This Poem

This poem shows voice because the author is speaking in the first person about their own experiences. They further show emotion because they are worried about a possible storm (a terrible event) that could be coming soon. They are telling how they continue dreaming and worrying about this, night and day they think about it and no matter how much looking and researching they do, they cannot shake their gut feeling. In this way, it tells the story of their daily experiences that give them this gut feeling. It reads:

I am dreaming of tornadoes again, too many for the sky to contain. I have checked eight websites and the dictionary on my nightstand. I did not need technology or a writer to tell me there is chaos in my heart. I don’t tell people sometimes my dreams come true. I fear some parts are not metaphor. In the mornings I check the horizon. I am relieved when there is some whisper of light. On the way home from camping, a large storm made the highway a blur of brake lights, my fingers killers to my steering wheel. I kept searching for funnels, their willowy bodies twisting their way to the ground. Mapped out escape routes and viaducts to pull beneath. Today I fell asleep on the couch again. The wind rustled me awake, and parts of the sky were dark again. I can’t shake that something is coming. I don’t do well with worry. My mother built me to fix things.