Gum In My Hair

Your prompt is to write a poem about Bad Habits. We all have bad habits. Or had them. Write about a "bad" habit you had/have, or about trying to lose the habit, or about how much you enjoy your bad habit even though you know it's not good for you.

Please limit your poem to 30 lines or less - and you may write your poem in Free Verse, or using a form (please identify the form).

Gum In My Hair

In the movie version of "The Divine
Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood," at the
very end Sidda's mother, Vivi, tells Sidda
that she, Vivi, has always worried over
things - that she deals with a problem like
gum, chewing on it until all the flavor is
gone, then she sticks it in her hair - and I
loved that line because there are so many
reasons for sticking gum in one's hair,
like saving it to worry over later or maybe
even creating something new to worry about
(having gum stuck in your hair, for instance) and
no one seems to understand that except
maybe Vivi, or at least she used to until she
reformed, evidently, after the blow-up with
her daughter Sidda, which has been repaired
now that the entire basket-dropping incident
has been redeemed and that is all
well and good for them but here I sit
still wondering about the gum in her hair.


My "form" is "stream of consciousness," which is a technique that presents thoughts and feelings as they occur; it seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, usually without any closing punctuation until the very end. It is supposed to read as if it's being spoken quickly, without pause, as a sort of stream of consciousness.