This Is What A Rough Draft Looks Like

Below are the scraps of a poem yet to see even a rough completion. It's a cell rapidly dividing in the DNA of my imagination, but hasn't filled its petry dish. The concept and premise are clear: Lady and Robot go running, Robot has heart attack, Lady brings him home where he recovers, Lady hasn't learned a drop extra about compassion. The idea's in place for her to show the tiniest sign of coldness by leaving his shoes by the door instead of bringing them to him; this comes back as the nastiness it really is when he's still wheezing in bed and she leaves his medicine out of reach. 

In terms of poetic concept, I am dead-set on having the poem use iambic pentameter or tetrameter before and after the heart attack, and free verse during.

"
I left your shoes at the side of the door for you

to find. Tie them, and together we'll run

between patches of shade and ignore this heat,

ignore the steps softly falling behind,

your figure curling into the pebbled road.

My pace before your cry for help was swift,

but I lost [speed]

Your voice whistling

to be heard,

hands weakly reaching

to be felt,

my foot on the gas

to put you to bed.

Two aspirin wait on the side of the nightstand for you

to find. 
"

Now I just have to fill out the details of this miniature soap opera, which is always the trickiest part. Every element has to say something beyond the obvious, yet tell the basic story as well: where are they working out? How do they get home? What are his symptoms, what do they say to each other? The answers to all of these questions will tell the reader who these people are and their place in the world and each other's. 

One of my loftiest goals for this chapbook is to depict two people (one is possibly a robot; this is beside the point). There are other poems dedicated to their moments of happiness and calm, but this is one of the peak points of their incompatibility threatening the relationship's very existence. He must play the victim, but seem to be arrogant beforehand. She must seem heartless, yet sympathetic, even as she blithely tends to her sick partner. 

She sure as hell isn't going to cry or contemplate her mortality.

We'll see how recognizeable (and better? maybe?) this poem is in in its final stages.