FIFTEEN

There were fifteen of them that day

fifteen who poked and prodded

fifteen, who at various intervals,

came and asked questions

for which I had no answers

There were fifteen that night

roaming the corridors

coming to look

fifteen who spent hours

watching and waiting

for heaven knows what

I kept quiet through it all

the endless poking

the meaningless comments

the looks that reminded me

of that time on the bus...

well, I won't go there...

For fifteen days and nights

my mind wandered the darkness

while my body lay in listless state

for fifteen weeks

that felt like fifteen months

I walked the border between this world

and that

Sometimes I don't know where my writings come from. Earlier I had watched a tv program, Inside the Actor's Studio with Jodie Foster. She talked about the movie Accused in which she played a rape victim. I never saw the movie, but watching Jodie talk about it, I could easily get caught up in her emotion. It was a hard role for her and she still feels the effect.

At first, with my writing, the "picture" in my head was of a gang rape, but the end "picture" was of being in the hospital. Did Jodie's talk trigger something in me? I certainly have not had that experience. When the poem was done, I thought that it had morphed into something different, but now I am not so sure. The mind does funny things. Could the "I" in my poem have been a victim and the mind confused doctors, nurses, and the assailants? And what happens to that woman during the time of healing... can she ever be fully healed when the minutes turn to hours and the hours to days... and weeks... and months? Can she ever again feel safe?

I don't know where I came up with the number fifteen. It just kind of stuck in my head and felt right. Perhaps, as I was not writing about a personal experience, I could not interject one as I tried to do with the bus experience. I could not put one of my memories into someone else's story. So, where did the story come from?

This poem, FIFTEEN, started with one line, "There were fifteen of them that day." A picture formed in my mind. I did not know where it would go. I simply picked up pen and paper and began to write. The "picture" blurred. I could not see faces. The words came to write the poem and I was just a witness.

Tell me a little about your writing practices. Do you spend hours working on a piece? Do you have to think hard or do ideas just come to? Where do your ideas come from?