Ode to the Suburbs Outside Ft. Lauderdale

By Hamza Mairajuddin

The suburbs outside Fort Lauderdale are composed just right,

And every day I’m grateful to call this place home

They’re picture perfect from around four to deep past twilight

Even when the streets are empty it’s impossible to be alone

Some say the rains are their best part, although I think it just as sweet

As when the sun rises up straight into the sky instead of the clouds

And brings with it the jarring Florida heat

When we gather in your grassy-wooded parks in groups instead of crowds

But sometimes the rains are what I love most about their temperamental weather

A sight to behold when the street lamps turn on in the haze of the rain

Never can someone here feel alone, we stand as one, together

Or alone, we stand and write this refrain

The suburbs outside Fort Lauderdale live just as they should

With scores of smiling faces and a bombardment of good vibes

There’s something inexplicable about the smell of palm tree wood

And the sweet smell of their beautiful lakes when the flood turns banks to tides

Even the crickets, the frogs, and the birds are something to behold

Because after every rainstorm they come out in swarms

Their sweet little symphony is something that never gets old

And even a man with coldest blood, from his heart he feels the warm

The warm, the cold, the sunny summer day

The rainy, the dreary, the perfect winter night

What muse can drive a man to write what I can say

About every little thing that comes in my sight

Because today was something special even among the rest

When I woke up at dawn’s light to find a scene laid out for me

One which I found remarkably picturesque

The near-perfect embodiment of what I needed to see

There’s something special about this town

At figuring out what, I consistently fail

But I keep living on, living on the bliss of sunup and sundown

In this sleepy little town in the Suburbs outside Fort Lauderdale

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Biography

My name is Hamza Mairajuddin. I’m a junior. Outside of school I spend my time writing or watching movies. For my extracurriculars, I do DECA, YIS, and Speech and Debate.

What is your main source of inspiration?

My main source of inspiration is the people around me and older works from the greater writers in history.

What artists and/or writers inspired or influenced your work?

My biggest inspiration for poetry is T.S. Elliot. His poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is one of my favourite poems of all time.