I... Cry...

I have always felt that strong prose contained many of the elements that make strong poems - startling imagery, rhythm, concise sentence structure, and deliberate word choice.

This is what Poets.org has to say about prose poems:

Though the name of the form may appear to be a contradiction, the prose poem essentially appears as prose, but reads like poetry. In the first issue of The Prose Poem: An International Journal, editor Peter Johnson explained, “Just as black humor straddles the fine line between comedy and tragedy, so the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels.”

While it lacks the line breaks associated with poetry, the prose poem maintains a poetic quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression, repetition, and rhyme. The prose poem can range in length from a few lines to several pages long, and it may explore a limitless array of styles and subjects.

Writers of prose poetry include Hans Christian Andersen, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Franz Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft, Gertrude Stein, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs.

My sister-in-law recently posted the following on Facebook. So in honor of National Poetry Month, I present:

I... Cry...

By Michaeline DeYoung

I'm not one of those people who get emotional. At least, I pretend not to be. I hold my emotions inside most of the time, but then, there are some things I can't help crying over. For instance, the sound of a church choir. No matter how hard I try not to, I cry like I have lost the most important thing in my whole life. To watch a couple, whether straight or gay or in-between, who are truly, completely in love, makes me cry. I'm so happy for them, and yet, I cry for myself because I don't think I'll ever know a love as deep. If I ever had it, I couldn't see the forest for the trees.

I cry over the smallest things, and I'm suffused with sadness. I have so many great friends and yet, I'm so alone with myself. I cry out the loneliness, I cry out, I cry out and no one hears me. No one really knows the pain I feel. No one knows because I'm walled in a tiny room with nowhere to run, nowhere to go, no one who cares enough about me to notice I don't think I'm well.

It amazes me how I go from day to day just existing. I have no motivation to do anything different. If I was miraculously gone tomorrow, I wouldn't be missed for long. It's so sad to think how alone I am in this world. I won't be remembered for even a simple achievement. But, I'll continue to exist for another day and another day and another day and...

I'll...

cry.