Image by Markus Winkler from Pixabay

I saw this trend –
counting how many hugs they’d get.
In a week,
I would have zero.
If we were counting arguments,
I would have 4.
If we were counting tears well,
there’d be more.
In a week.
A week is only 7 days
But it’s 7

L
O
N
G

days

of counting –
0 hugs
1 small voice
2 teary eyes
3 missed calls
4 arguments
5 restless nights
6 unopened texts
7 long days.

Words from the Author – JaLyn LaPratt

My inspiration for this poem came about when I happened to be scrolling through Tik Tok one day. I came upon a video of someone counting how many hugs they got throughout their day. This quickly became a short-lived trend. I guess you could say I hopped the bandwagon with this one. Except I took a different approach. I did what I enjoy doing and wrote a poem.

Revision Decision:

I pretty much knew how I wanted this poem to be structured as I was writing it. I wanted to add dramatics. Therefore, the short sentences, the word “long” formatted vertically, and the countdown at the end of the poem. The countdown was a last minute decision that I actually considered deleting simply because I was struggling to figure out what to pair with the number of days. I figured it out though, and I am glad I was able to.