An Ordinary Day

A quiet day at home
…………….yet not quiet enough to feel alone.
Music greets the pouring rain and I look out to my window,
Pondering on what I can do today.
I wish to go out to town; shop, smile and stroll,
But the harshness of the storm has put those thoughts to bay.

I wander around these white walls,
……………. trapped within empty rooms with cold floors.
The kitchen cupboards are filled with possibilities;
Bake a cake, cook a pie, make a roast, create a feast.
The bookshelf is dusty, begging to be entertained;
Read a page, meet a character, save a damsel, fight a beast.

The clock strikes quarter to two in the afternoon,
……………. I’m sure purpose will find me soon.
The rain continues to pour down the side of my house,
Making me long for company, a friend to talk to, a lover to hold.
I blame the rain for wasting my days, my night, my chance to find
someone to talk to, someone to love before I’m too old.

I look to my cactus in its little grey pot,
…………….. left alone to wilt away, we’re left lonely to rot.
The clock on my wall comes to a halt at three o’clock
And the sun breaks through my living room, but my mind is clouded grey.
The rain has stopped and there’s still time to be spent,
I could go out and find a purpose… but I’ll wait another day.

A short reflection on my poem:
When reading Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I was confronted with themes of entrapment, gender roles, mortality and many other melancholic ideas. The protagonist Clarissa decides to host a party, putting all of her time and effort into this social event as she believes she has no other talents. This idea is explored in my poem through the persona’s reliance on finding someone to give her purpose rather than taking up one of the many hobbies she mentions. Clarissa is also confined to the domesticity that her gender role has placed on her, mirroring the way that the persona in my poem feels trapped within her own house. I had a lot of fun experimenting with Woolf’s stream of consciousness style and use of motifs by delving into the mindset of Clarissa Dalloway in this poem.

*Images attained from google images