Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

So long, Chicago

I lie here in the grass
Watching faded stars come out.
Dampness clinging to my skin
While I listen to the Jazz band play,
Wondering what tomorrow holds
When I have to say goodbye and go on my way.
And the train ride is too long,
But it can never be long enough.
Sleep overtakes us one by one,
And it won't be long until I'm missing you.
Chicago.

We don’t really talk so much
As we walk these streets alone.
A building catches your imagination;
You say a word or two.
I'm ok with this silence,
But I’m wondering, are you?
Sometimes I feel you are a stranger,
At times my closest friend.
Before I realize that it's happened
It's time to go again.
So long,
Chicago.

Chicago

Your streets feel empty. Your buildings tower above me, but they feel lifeless, somehow distant edifices lacking life to inhabit their blankly reflecting windows. People walk the streets, but they are shadows. All is muffled and far off. I don’t understand you. You are unlike any I have met before. You lack the frantic pace of others, the maddening dash and hurried impatience that is familiar to me. I wonder at you, uncomfortable with this strangeness. Could I love you like I have loved no other? I have been fascinated, enthralled, disgusted, welcomed, and repulsed by many before you. Yet you leave me puzzled.

I feel neither welcome nor forbidden. You are indifferent. Your cold wind sometimes leaves me shaking, but it is just your nature. The sun shines brightly on your streets; few shadows block its rays. It warms me, just as your cold has chilled me through.

You do not draw me in the way others have drawn me before, with curiosity beckoning from afar. Our meeting was a chance occasion, drawn together by acquaintances and friends, once, twice, three times. I still find you an enigma, sometimes warm and open, sometimes bitterly cold and distant, sometimes both at once.

You have a strange effect on me. I walk your streets in silence. Taking small comfort in the closeness of my friends. I wonder what this one makes of my reticence. He is not accustomed to my poverty of speech, but I have little to say so we walk in silence. With him this is ok, just as it is with you; and I am thankful for it.

Familiar Stranger

I went.
You came.
Chicago.
City that is not a city,
City that has lost itself.

Where are you?
Wandering amidst the music
and the faded stars.

Who are you?
Stranger,
with a familiar face
and a name I know.

Praha

Praha, beautiful city, filled with shining lights,
Sometimes old and weary, somehow new and bright.

Endless winding streets whisper of ghosts from long ago.
Open ancient squares are full of faces I do not know.

You speak to me, in voices I do not understand.
I am an awkward stranger in a beautiful, native land.

You’ve chilled me to the bone 'neath the darkness and the lights.
I don’t know how I shall be warm in my hostel room tonight.

Yet there is no coldness in my heart; no need to make amends,
As I sit amid the warmth and smiles in the comfort of my friends.

And I know in my heart, with a depth I cannot comprehend,
That I shall miss you wholly when my journey comes to its end.

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