One Act Play

The Break Up

(Enter Lucas, 27, wearing a black sport coat, and Martha, wearing a green dress, 25, wearing a flowery dress, holding hands. Lucas has a large build and is of average height. Martha is smaller than Lucas. The couple has been dating for seven months. They approach a door.)

Martha: I really don’t want to be out tonight, babe. I’m too tired, and I have to work tomorrow, and I don’t want to ruin my only dress.

Lucas: Oh, you’re just saying things. Of course you want to go out. You always like spending time with me.

M: But not tonight. Please, can you just bring me home?

L: Stop being silly. Let’s go inside.

(Lucas opens the door and walks inside. Martha, waiting for Lucas to hold the door open for her, waits until her date closes the door, then opens it for herself. Once both are inside, they walk to a podium, where a women in a uniform stands.)

Hostess: Hi, welcome to Friendly’s… Hey, Martha. How are you? I couldn’t recognize you without your apron on.

M: I’m doing well…

L: (Interrupting Martha) We want a table for two, please

H: Ya, sure. (Grabs menus.) You can follow me.

(The hostess brings the couple to a table. The couple holds hands again, although Martha has a depressed look on her face. Lucas sits first, then Martha takes her chair and sits down opposite from him. The hostess walks back to the podium, and Martha continues to show her upset expression.)

L: (Curiously) What’s wrong, honey?

M: Nothing.

L: Are you sure? Do you want to move to a different table or something?

M: No.

L: Alrighty, then. Then why don’t you cheer up so we can eat?

M: (Exhaling) Okay.

(A server delivers food to the table. Lucas receives the Double Cheeseburger with bacon, and Martha receives the Caesar Salad. The server walks away.)

L: (With food in his mouth) Wow… This burger is amazing.

M: I’m sure it is.

(They each have a bite of their dinner.)

M: Sweetie, did you remember your wallet?

L: Of course I did. How silly of you to think that. Have some trust in me, please.

M: Okay, sorry.

(Another pause for a bite.)

L: So how was your day?

M: Fine.

L: Anything special happen?

M: No.

L: C’mon. Nothing? Not even going out with me right now? That’s gotta be special.

M: You know how I feel about being with you.

L: Just tell me this is special, for me. (A pause). Please.

M: (Reluctantly, sounding rehearsed) Our time together is very special.

L: Thank you. Now let’s get some ice cream.

(The server comes back and they each order an ice cream. The Server walks away, then comes back with their desserts and the check.)

L: Now let’s see here. (Looks at the check.) Uh, that’s a little expensive. What did you get, Martha?

M: Less than you did.

L: It doesn’t look like it here. Oh well, then. Let’s pay and get out of here. (Checks his pockets). Uh, Martha…I think I forgot my wallet.

M: You said you brought it this time.

L: Well, I guess I didn’t. Could you get it this time? I’ll pay you back, I promise.

M: Lucas, this is the third time this month. (Getting louder.) And you haven’t paid me back at all. You know I’m not a money tree.

L: I’m sorry, sweetie.

M: (Getting even louder.) No, you’re not sorry. Because you are going to keep doing this again and again until I have nothing left. And trust me, on this pace, it won’t be long until that happens.

L: (Sounding surprised) Whoa, Martha, I had no idea you felt this way. Look, once we leave, I’ll find my wallet and I’ll pay you back everything that I owe you.

M: (Takes a deep breath, and in a soft and quiet voice) No, that’s okay. You don’t have to do that. (One more breath) Lucas, I’ve been thinking about this, about “us,” for a while, and, well, I don’t want “us” anymore.

L: (Tearing up) Wha-Wha-Wha, What? Please don’t leave me. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ll be a mess without you.

M: I’m sorry, Lucas. We just can’t be together anymore. It’s just not meant to be. I can’t be with a person who thinks I am nothing.

L: (Crying even more) How did you get that idea? I love you, and I want you to feel super special.

M: Well then that’s how you should have treated me before. Goodbye.

(Martha stands up and walks out of the restaurant, through the door the couple entered, leaving Lucas sitting at the table with the unpaid check. He is crying his eyes out with his head his down on the table. Everyone in the restaurant is staring at him.)

THE END

"Picture Perfect" Images

"Picture Perfect" Passages

#1) The Mushroom

Standing on my porch for the last time in a long time, I began to reminisce on the wonderful things that happened on the green grass of my backyard. All of the wiffleball and badminton games, all of the water balloon fights, they were all going to temporarily go away as soon as I left for college a thousand miles away.

As I looked around, trying to find the memories, I looked upon the only abnormality on the lawn. It was brown, and round on the top. It looked like it was elevating in the air, until I noticed a long and narrow stem attached to the ground that kept this half-sphere above the surface. It seemed odd to me. 

I had seen things similar to this before, but I had never remembered seeing it on my yard. Living here for fifteen years, it seemed like I would have noticed it before. But I just couldn't recall that it was ever there.

I asked my mom how long I had before I had to leave, and she replied that I had only a few minutes before I needed to depart for Florida. So, I walked off the porch, and sprinted across the lawn, toward this interesting object. From a distance, it seemed rather minuscule, but as I approached it, it grew and grew until I saw that it was more the size of the wiffleballs that scattered the grass for years. I reached down, and I touched it. It had the smoothness of the round tips of badminton birdies that used to fly around on the days filled with the shining sun. Finally, I decided to pick it up, with the delicateness I had picked up water balloons in the summers, and I stuck it in my pocket, to remember my home and everything that was a part of it. I walked back onto the porch, turned around to scan the yard one final time, and walked inside, and eventually I left for the airport.

And to this day, I carry that object with me wherever I go.

#2) Happy Dog

After twenty minutes, the rain started to fall on me and my dog. Her fur began to fill with this water from the sky and was shivering because of it. With both of us completely soaked, I decided that we end our walk and head back home. Grabbing on to her leash tightly, I turned my dog in the opposite direction and started for home.

We turned to the right into the driveway, and we made our trek up it toward the house. The trees protected us from the rain, so we stayed outside and played on the driveway. Grasping a tennis ball from my pocket, I took it out and threw it into the front yard. My beautiful lab sprinted towards the ball, opened her mouth, used that mouth to capture it, and sprinted back, placing the ball in front of me. From past experiences, I knew that this action was a sign for me to throw the ball again. I threw it seven more times, until she continued to hold the ball in her mouth and sat down next to my feet. I knew now that it was time to go inside. But then, she heard a noise.

The dog jumped up and dropped the ball from her mouth. I stared at her to see what the matter was, and I saw her turn her head to the left. I turned my head to the right to look at what she saw. 

Just as I turned my head, a car pulled into the driveway. Not just any car, however. It was a car that my dog and I have seen for many years. The car stopped right in front of us, and my mom stepped out of the driver's side of the gray Camry that pulled in. Wagging her tail and panting to show her excitement, my dog ran towards my mom and jumped up onto her legs. I thought that my dog had been happy before, but I had never seen her so happy than when my mom hopped out of that car.

#3) Coming Home

                                                         

About every two months, with school in my rear-view mirror, even if just for a day or two, I come home to the same scrumptious scene.

A two hour drive from rural New Hampshire brings me back to my home I had lived in for nineteen years, 231 Reginald Avenue in Haverhill. I park parallel to the road to the left of me, and I turn right to stare at it. Just looking at the house makes me ecstatic to be home again. I check for cars on the road, open the door slowly for extra caution, and then I jump out of the driver’s side door and sprint behind the trunk so I almost guarantee that I do not get hit. I unlock the trunk with the turn of a key, and it flies open, revealing the gym bag containing all of my clothes and eyewear for the weekend. I grab the strap with my right hand, then take the bag out and wrap the strap around my shoulder. I close the trunk with my left hand, and then lock the car. After checking that the entire car is secure, I turn again toward the home.

I look at the five steep, cement steps that lead to the front door. I remember that I cracked the corner of the fourth one when I smashed a hammer into it at age 9, so now it looks crooked from the bottom of the flight. I remember all of the days I got off the school bus and walked up these stairs, anticipating what the afternoon would bring. After staring at the steps, I look up slightly.

I look at the front of my childhood home. I remember the small, but fun, Thanksgiving football games that were played in my undersized front yard. I remember all of the reading I did on the lawn when my sister had the TV on too loud inside. I remember painting the house white one afternoon because my mom just thought it needed something new; and staring up at it at any time- in the rains of April or the sun of July or the snow of December, I knew that she made the right choice.

I walk up the stairs, through the yard, up more steps to the front door, and I ring the doorbell, always using my left index finger. And every time, I sit there, waiting for someone to answer the door, and it takes only a second to get excited about seeing my family again.

#4) His Last Beach Day (TEST)

September 3^rd, 2012, a day that will live in infamy, at least for Tommy.

Holly and Tommy, instead of staying home and having a cookout, always went to the beach on Labor Day. They had done this every year since they had gotten married over six years ago. So on this day, they packed their beach equipment-towels, chairs, umbrellas, drink coolers- in the back of their green sedan, and they drove the hour and a half drive to Hyannis.

Once they arrived in the town, they parked their car a half mile away from the main beach, grabbed their stuff, and began walking on the right sidewalk toward the ocean. Walking down the sidewalk, something felt strange to Tommy. The ground felt like it was shaking under him, although there was no earthquake anywhere on that day. The buildings felt like they were going to collapse on him and his wife, although none of them have not or will not collapse for another seventy-five years. Tommy felt so frightened that he grabbed Holly’s left arm and picked up their speed to get out of he thought as a horror town.

When they got to the main parking lot of the beach, they turned east and walked down a cement path to their “secret beach” where nobody else would go to swim and relax.  As they walked, the beach continued to get farther and farther away from them as the couple ascended up the cliffs. Reaching the top of the cliffs, the couple turned to a sign that reinforced the danger of where they were going. It read: “Danger, Sliding Cliffs, Keep Back.” But they had never and would not keep back from the cliffs.

Tommy and Holly found their spot. Throwing their beach things over the cliff, they fell onto the tan sand below. Now they were ready to jump onto the beach. Holly moved left of the things, and with her large, strong legs, jumped over the cliffs, falling almost seventeen feet, and landing on her size eight feet like a gymnastics champion. Now it was Tommy’s turn. He, using the balls of his size twelve feet flew from the rocky plateau, flowing through the air the same way as his spouse did a minute earlier, but a little closer to the Atlantic. And instead of landing on his feet, like he had done for the past five years, he thought it would be funny to land like a cannonball in the ocean. But unlike a cannonball in the ocean, Tommy landed on his back and blacked out.

When Tommy woke two days later, room 241 of Mass General was the only thing he saw. A doctor walked in, and told him everything. He told them about the immediate response to the beach. He told them about the hours of surgery just to keep him alive. And in the end, he told him about how he can never use his legs again.

#5) The Voice (TEST)

I had been walking for about a mile, just admiring the unique scene that this new country presented to me. The unfamiliar architecture that was worn by these century-old buildings, the confusing language that was spoken by these fascinating people, it seemed so odd to me. Sure, I loved living here for the past month, but I could still not understand anything that went on here. And worst of all, I had nobody to talk to: international phone calls were much too expensive, letters took much too long to write, mail, and receive, and I could not talk to anybody without getting the weirdest looks imaginable. I was lonely, very lonely, in this brand new world, and I wasn’t sure if I could stand it for the next year.

As I kept walking, I wandered into a new place that I had never been since I arrived. To my left was the light blue sea that I had looked upon many times before. But to my right, I stared into a long and narrow alleyway. In this alley, I could see many doors on both sides, which I assumed to be doors to people’s houses. So, I turned my body to where my eyes were looking, and I began to walk down this narrow road.

Just a few meters after I entered, I heard a noise from one of the doors. It seemed like a scream, so I ran to the noise to see what was going on. The noise kept getting louder and louder as I got closer and closer to the noise. As I neared it even more, it stopped sounding like a scream, and I could pick out words that were being spoken in a loud manner:

                “Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?”

Those were the first words of English I had heard since I arrived. Hoping it was someone I could actually communicate with, I picked up speed and sprinted to the noise as fast as Usain Bolt in the Olympics. When I arrived at what I thought was the door where the voice originated, I stared at it for a moment. It had a lot of scratches on its oak-colored frame. Seeing there could be trouble inside the house, I opened the door.

#6) Growth

Boston has progressed greatly over the years.

First, it was land and nothing else. Rolling hills, green summers, white winters, nobody living anywhere near.

Then came the Native Americans with their basic technologies. They had spears for their hunting of deer and duck and fishing for bass and tuna. They had one room huts made of long branches to live in that were much smaller than the hills that surrounded them. They grew together as a group and relied on each other to survive the hot, humid summers and the cold, killing winter. Years flew by until everything changed.

The year sixteen-twenty was when Plymouth is claimed, and ten years later, the same occurred to Boston. These Puritans smashed the inhabitants of hundreds of years before, and they took over everything that had been there earlier. Guns had arrived with the capability of killing anyone and anything. Families lived in wooden, multi-room homes, still not the size of the mounds of soil they are put on top of. The people were brought together by religion and family values. The “City Upon a Hill” had been born.

Wood was replaced with stone and brick, and the buildings began to inch taller and taller. Floors instead of floor, baths instead of bath. People wanted more, and they were getting it, and lots of it. But then they wanted even more than that. And when demand was at its highest, there came steel. A more potent material, the city started to fly above the hills that have captured the city for years. Low-to-the-ground houses became sky-high apartments and hotels. Tens of feet above the earth became hundreds and hundreds. Skyscrapers became the norm in the city.

Today, it is more of the same from a hundred years ago. When I look up, I stare upon buildings higher into the air that anybody would imagine at the beginning of this city’s history. Some square, some circular, some with analog clocks, some with narrow bars rising above it, but all had lights flashing through the windows when the sun came down. The city is powerful, very powerful, a lot more powerful than it was when it was long, green grass and flowing hills on the coast.

Best Prompt "Burst"

The Prompt: There's a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper.


There's a guy sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper. Suddenly, a woman walks over and sits next to him:
        "What are you reading?" asked the woman.
        "Nothing," replied the man. "I can't read. I can't see for that matter."
        "Then why does it look like you are reading that newspaper?'
        "I just don't want to feel left out of this world by not reading things."
The man could not tell, but the woman's face shifted from a curious to a more concerned expression. She, the President of the Book Readers of America, wished she could help out this poor, blind man. But then she got an idea.
Because of her seven-figure salary, she had the money to give this man vision. She grabbed him, lifted him up from the bench, and brought him to the nearest optometrist. There, he was given laser eye surgery, which allowed him to see for the first time. The woman paid for the entire operation. The man thanked the surgeon, the nurse, and the secretary, and then left the office, seeing everything except for the woman who gave him his eyes.

The Greatest Golfer with No Future (Piece of fiction with palpable irony)

          His name was Joseph Wilson. Swinging clubs since three, and competing since seven, he knew how to win. When he turned pro, he started on the mini tours, where he won every other week. And in 2015, he was competing on the big stage at age 24, and racking up victories on a record clip.          

   His last five events: five wins, all by at least five shots, all on some of the toughest courses in the world. Pebble Beach, Augusta, Sawgrass, Colonial, Muirfield, he was conquering them all.

Throughout this whole stretch, people were noticing his talent. Pros were admiring his swing and control of the ball. Analysts were praising his ability to run away from the field. Fans were screaming his name after every shot because they were all great. So going into the US Open at Chambers Bay, anyone associated with golf became oracles and were convinced that it was destiny for Wilson to continue his unprecedented streak.

This is the story of his week:

Monday: Joseph flies from his hometown of Tempe, Arizona to Seattle, Washington where his caddie, Todd Jenson, who had been studying the layout for an entire week, picks him up at the airport and drives him forty-five minutes southwest to register for the tournament. He walks into the clubhouse, finds the registration counter, and fills out his information. Once done, he hands the forms to the person behind the counter, and once the papers had been received, Wilson whispers something into the person’s ear.

                He steps back, and the registrar replies back to him, “Well, have a great week, sir. Enjoy it all; this is the best tournament to play.” Wilson acknowledges the comment and leaves the clubhouse so he can get his first look at the golf course.

                From the clubhouse, he walks to the first tee, then down the first fairway, then to the green, with his caddie carrying his bag for him. He does this for all of the eighteen holes on the course, taking his time to examine all of the features of what he will be playing on Thursday. He notices a false front on the green on 3, the slope of the fairway on 8, the different tees that could be played on 18. After his prep, he walks back to the clubhouse and bumps into one of his college buddies: Jordan Spieth.

                “Hey, how’d you hit it today, Joe?” Spieth asks as he spots Wilson.

                “I didn’t hit,” he answers. “Just wanted to check out the track.”

                “Well, alright then. Good luck this week,” Jordan says back with much confusion.

                “Same to you,” Joseph says while shaking his competitor’s hand.

                He walks to his courtesy car with his caddie, puts his clubs in his car, and drives to his ocean-side rental estate for the week.

Tuesday:  Very similar to yesterday. Joseph arrives at the golf course at nine in the morning with his caddie and his clubs. Straight to the range he goes, striking his wedges, irons, woods, and driver to flex his muscles in preparation for his practice round. Soon after the warm-up, he walks five minutes to the first tee, where he started his walk the day before. Joining him was his buddie, Spieth, as well as two amateurs who qualified to play in the event.

                On this day, he plays all eighteen holes with these three players, ultimately shooting 68, a two-under par round at Chambers Bay.

                “A good day today,” Wilson says to the media in his press conference after the round. “Learned a lot more about the course and I know this is a course I will have a lot of success on.”

                The press conference continues for about twenty-five minutes, where he answers questions regarding a multitude of topics, from the course to his streak to his favorite pizza. But in the end, one reporter, Rex Hoggard, brings up something interesting to Wilson.

                “Do you think this week will be the defining moment in your career?”

                “Ummm…” Wilson ponders the question for a moment. “Well, all I know is that the entire week will be very special for me, and hopefully I can I can end it with something very special too.”

                Joseph leaves the press room, grabs a ham sandwich from the clubhouse, gets back into his car, and goes back to his home for the week, where he relaxes on the beach until he goes back to the course tomorrow.

Wednesday: Today is the Pro-Am day, where the professionals in the tournament go and play the course with amateurs that want to learn from the pros. So Joseph arrives at the course at six thirty to see when his Pro-Am tee time. But when he arrives, he found out from an official that there was never a Pro-Am because the US Open is a major championship and players need more preparation than other tournaments.

                Wilson sighs, “Oh well, might as well go back to bed.”

                So, he jumps back in his car, drives to his estate, and takes a four hour nap before taking the day off and just reviewing notes before beginning his next quest.

Thursday: Joseph Wilson arrives back at Chambers Bay and Tuesday’s warm-up returns as well, but at eight AM. After the hour-long warm-up, he steps to the first tee once again, but this time it counts. Once there, he introduces himself to his playing partners, Adam Scott and coincidentally, Jordan Spieth. Once each receives their scorecards and is ready to begin the round, the announcer calls to the fans:

                “Welcome all to the 115^th United States Open Championship. This is the 9:04 am tee time. Now on the tee, from Tempe, Arizona, please welcome, Joseph Wilson!”

                The fans applaud, and Wilson steps to the tee. He stabs his tee into the dead grass that formed from the large amount of foot traffic, and the ball is placed on top of that. With driver in hand, he walks beside the ball and retreats into his stance. Wilson knows this is probably the most important tee shot of his life. The whole world watching him, he pulls the trigger.

                Thwack!! The club smashes the ball, and it flies and flies and flies. It doesn’t touch down for eleven seconds, and when it does, it’s three hundred and twenty yards down the middle of the fairway. The fans explode even louder than before, and Wilson steps aside so the other players can hit. Spieth and Scott stripe their drives down the middle of the fairway, but still twenty or thirty yards behind Wilson, and the group is off, beginning their tournaments.

                Scott and Spieth had identical rounds, with 1-under par 69s that included three birdies and two bogeys. But the real story of the day was Wilson. He birdies holes 1, 4, 7, 9, 16, and 18 for a bogey-free 64.

                “My wedges were on today,” he recalls in his post-round interview. “This was probably the best round I have played this year.”

                “What do you expect the rest of the week, Joe,” Todd Lewis, the reporter, asks after the review of the day.

                “Well,” Joseph begins with his response, “All I’m hoping for is to have fun and enjoy being on the golf course. I am playing in the US Open, right?”

                After the interview, Wilson immediately exits the premises to prepare for tomorrow. After another ham sandwich at home, he goes to bed and dreams about his game plan for the next day.

Friday: Friday plays out the exact same way as Thursday. Another one hour warm-up, another walk to the first tee (except this time at 1:30), another walk around the course with Spieth and Scott, another 69 for his competitors, and another 64 for Joseph Wilson. His twelve-under par total puts him at the top of the leaderboard, ahead of the next competitor by seven shots. Wilson has this tournament at his fingertips.

Saturday: Not as well as the first two days, but still a very good showing for Joseph Wilson . Playing with Ian Poulter in the final pairing, they tee off at two-thirty in the afternoon. Poulter, who was in second place, tries to catch up to Wilson, but it just makes him play worse. Bunker to bunker, hazard to hazard all day, and in the end, he shot 78 and plays himself completely out of the tournament.

                Wilson, on the other hand, hit every fairway and every green, unheard of at a place like Chambers Bay.

                “I could not putt if my life depended on it,” Wilson says to the media after coming in with a bogey-free 69 that included 35 putts. “I will never have that type of putting performance again on the tour.”

                So, even though the round was not what he expected, Joseph extends his lead to ten shots on the field, and with no sign of him slowing down or someone speeding up, Wilson could sleep tonight with no worry of a comeback.

Sunday: And with no worries, Wilson comes out firing on all cylinders. Wilson birdies his first five holes to even further himself from the field. He goes on to birdie 8, 10, 13, 14, and 16. Stepping up to the 18^th fairway, he has a chance of shooting 59, the lowest score ever in a competitive event, with an eagle.

                The drive was right down the middle with a slight draw to gain an extra seven yards. Now he has two hundred and thirty yards, downhill, to a pin tucked on the right. Wilson decides to go for it.

                “I wanted that 59,” Wilson reminisces to the media after the round. “I really, really wanted it.”

                So that’s what he does. Taking a four iron from his back, he sets up left of the flag, pulls the club back, and strikes the ball, causing it to move from left to right, closer to the hole, and closer, and closer, until it lands twenty feet short of the pin and rolls forward until it stops six inches away from the cup. The fans roar from excitement.

                Walking to the green, Wilson high-fives everyone in the gallery along the ropes. When he gets up there, he marks his ball and let his playing competitor finish his day, which was a round of 70. Then, Joseph puts the ball down, picks up his coin, moves to the side of the ball, and taps it into the cup. 59 on the day, 24-under par for the week, and eighteen shots for the difference between him and second place.

                He drops to the ground, crying over this win. Jenson, his caddie, walks up to him and embraces him on the ground. Fans roar and continue to roar as Wilson walks to the clubhouse to sign his scorecard. He signs the scorecard, and then walks outside for a mini interview with the media. After that came the trophy presentation.

                On the eighteenth green is Wilson and Mike Davis, the executive director of the USGA. Davis hands him the forty pound trophy made of pure silver and the fans in the stands erupt. Wilson then steps forward and speaks to the crowd:

                “Thank you. I want to thank everyone here: Mr. Davis, the fans, the volunteers, the other golfers. They all made this event the best event I could possibly play in. This is the greatest accomplishment of my career and I am going to cherish this victory for the rest of my career. Thank you again.”

                The crowd cheers for him once more. Then Todd Lewis approaches to ask for some final responses from the champion. After some basic questions about the tournament, Todd Lewis asks his final question of the evening:

                “So where are you going to be next, Joseph?”

                With no hesitation, Wilson replies, “I am going to retire from professional golf and caddy here at Chambers Bay for the rest of my life.”

                The crowd laughs at first, but then… silence.  They become shocked are scared: Is the best golfer in the world just going to end his golf career after the most impressive golf performance in history?

                Yes, yes he is. He walks off the green, goes to his car, and leaves the facilities, never to be seen at a professional golf event again.

Visual Found Poem (from a page of text)

3 Poems Assignment

Acrostic: 
-Draft:
                          My Greatest Gift

Many mornings, I wake up, and

You are always there to greet me.

Getting ready for the day, all I see is you,

Relaxing in your bed,

Eating your food,

Always making me feel good.

Then, after finishing my preparations, I

Ensconce on the couch, and you

Sprint to my side, and jump,

Touching down and lying down next to me,

Giving me joy and happiness.

In time for the bus, I

Flee from the couch and run to the door, still

Thinking about the greatest gift I had ever received.

-Final:

                         My Greatest Gift

Many mornings, I rise from my bed, and

You greet me like the sun from the east.

Getting ready for the day, all I notice is you,

Relaxing in your square, soft bed,

Eating your food from your bowl by the bathroom,

Always expanding my heart.

Then, after I’m done prepping for the day, I

Ensconce on the couch, and you

Sprint to my side, and jump,

Touching down and lying next to me,

Giving me the love I need.

In time for the bus, I

Flee from the couch and run to the door, still

Thinking about you and all others like you, the greatest gifts to the world.

Sestina:

-Draft:

                                          The Dream

 I’ve had many dreams in my day

  but this one sticks out the most.

  My dreams are usually about sports or family,

 but this one is a little different.

  It involves celebrities, dances, and songs

 and it keeps you wanting to stick to the end.
 

  I begin my dream at the end

 of a very long and tiring day.

  All I wanted was to listen to songs

 from today that I love the most.

  But I watched it in a way a little different,

  by watching The Tonight Show with my family

 During this show, my family

 watched a Lip Sync Battle to the very end

and when it was done, I felt different

than I had when I watched one the other day

 I thought for a while, and when I thought the most

 I thought I might be able to compete with these types of songs
 

  So I went to Twitter, and challenged Jimmy Fallon to two songs

 At first, in front of my family,

 And then if he thought I was a “singer” with the most,

 I could “sing” on the show, but at the very end.

 He accepted my challenge, and on one particular day

 I did things a little different.

When I got to Studio 6B, I was treated different

Getting a lot of attention to prepare me for my songs

And then, at 3pm on that day

 I got on stage in front of my family

 Jimmy and I did our tunes, we had fun, and in the end,

 The producers wanted me ‘cause out of all of the challengers, they like me the most

 So I went on the show, lip synced, and had the most

Fun I’d ever had, even though it was so different

 Than anything I’ve done, especially since the end

Of just listening to all of my favorite songs.

 And the best part was that my family

Was so proud of what I did that entire day

 Then at the end, after I got the most

 Out of that whole day, I felt really different

 Because I sang those songs, and I lip synced to not just my family.

-Final:

                      The Dream

 I’ve had many dreams in my day

 but this one sticks out the most.

 My dreams are usually about sports or family,

 but this one is a little different.

 This dream involves celebrities, dances, and songs,

 and it keeps you wanting to read to the end.
 

  I begin my dream at the end

  of a very long and tiring day.

  All I wanted was to listen to songs

  from today, the ones I loved the most.

  But I listened in a way very different,

  By viewing The Tonight Show with my family.

During this episode, my family

watched a Lip Sync Battle from beginning to end

and when it was done, I felt different,

 like a­­ guy who changes their goals every day

 I thought for a while, and when I thought the most

 I thought maybe I could compete with these types of songs
 

 So I took to Twitter, and challenged Jimmy Fallon to  lip-synced songs

 At first, in front of my family,

 And then if he and others thought I was the “singer” with the most,

 I could “sing” on the show, but at the very end.

 He accepted my challenge, and on one outstanding day,

 I went to New York and did things a little different.

When I got to Studio 6B, I was treated different,

I was a famous celebrity while I prepared for my songs.

And then, at 3pm on that day

 I got on stage in front of my family

 Jimmy and I did our tunes, we had fun, and in the end,

 the producers wanted me ‘cause out of all of the challengers, they liked me the most

 So I went on the real show, lip synced, and had the most

 fun I’d ever had, even though it was so different

 than anything I’ve done before, especially since the end

 of always singing those splendid  songs.

 And the best part was that my family

 Was so proud of what I did that entire day

 Then at the end, after I got the most

 Out of the day, in my dream, I felt very different.

Because when I “sang” those songs, I felt like anything was possible for me and my family.

Terza rima:

-Draft:

                                      How I Quit

 I’ve been competing in two sports for about nine years

  playing them in the spring, summer, and fall,

 I did not think either would disappear.

 Freshman year, I got the call

 to play on my high school teams,

and that’s when I first thought if I should play it all.

 The fall season brought me to the TPC.

 I loved playing there with all my heart

 and I never felt bad when I put in the tee.

 But then the spring came, and I took part

 On the field with my other favorite sport.

 But for some reason, my good feelings fell apart.

With these bad feelings, I decided to abort

 my mission of playing two games.

-Final:

                               How I Quit

 I’ve been competing in two sports for about nine years,

 playing them in the spring, summer, and fall,

 I did not think either would disappear.

 It was freshman year when I got the calls

 to play on my high school teams,

and that’s when I first thought “Should I play it all?”

 The fall season brought me to the TPC.

 I loved this place with my brain and my heart

 I felt like a pro when I put in the tee.

 But then the spring came, and I took part

 on the sandlot, playing my other sport.

 But for some strange reason, my good feelings fell apart.

So like lots of others in the world, and with a lot of support,

I gave up on a passion that I felt had to be let go.