April PAD Challenge: Day 16

I don’t want to alarm you, but today’s challenge was a bit of a challenge for me this morning. Hopefully, you won’t struggle as much as I did. But even…

I don't want to alarm you, but today's challenge was a bit of a challenge for me this morning. Hopefully, you won't struggle as much as I did. But even if you do, that's why it's called a challenge, I guess. Plus, we're like only trying to get our rough drafts done in April anyway. Then, we can revise and/or toss stuff in May and beyond, right? Right.

Oh yeah, the prompt for the day. Well, it's something I'm calling the "Alfred Hitchcock" poem, because I want you to write a poem that has a twist near the end. For instance, write a poem about talking to your best friend and then let us know at the end that your best friend is actually a sock puppet on your left hand--maybe even add to the intrigue by making your arch nemesis your right hand.

Of course, there are lots of ways to approach this one. What gave me trouble was figuring out how to do the twist at the end. Finally, what helped me was to think of how I wanted the poem to end and write to that ending--using an indirect route, of course.

(Note: I just began and ended that paragraph with "of course.")

And with that, here's my poem for the day:

"A call late at night"

Hey, baby. I'm guessing you're asleep;
I hope that you are. I'm so thankful
for you and sorry I have to whisper.

You're always so good to me, and I
wish you were here now. But if you
wake up and hear this message, please
don't call me back, because I'm hiding:

I think someone is in my house.

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.