The tapping.
Tap tap tap goes the sound through the wall
In the bedroom and kitchen and up through the hall
Surely it’s got to be distracting now
To give no reaction, I can't comprehend how
Tap tap tap moves around and around
My fingers are tired from making this sound
Through the small hole in the wall I peer into the house
I feel as if though I’m as small as a mouse
His hands cover his ears all day and all night
I start tapping even louder just out of spite
I watch as my tapping drives him insane
He rips down the walls to take away the pain
As he pulls down the last wall and trips into my trap
His last three words were tap tap tap.
-Maggie Schmidt
I love the repetition of "tap, tap, tap" and the language in that last stanza - "trips into my trap" - is downright creepy! Nice work.
ReplyDeleteThis is so deliciously creepy! The rhyme scheme is so simple that it's almost childlike, which only makes the poem more ominous. You turn the playful rhythm, along with something as innocuous as tapping, into something threatening.
ReplyDeleteThe first stanza had me thinking this was the POV of the person hearing the tapping, since that's a perspective Poe often explores. I love that you subvert expectations by giving us the story from inside the wall. Such a good twist!