I began my process collecting various sounds with a lavalier microphone. The sounds I used consisted of echoing voices in a stairwell, a Bic lighter, breathing, shifting bedsheets, crinkling plastic bags, impressionist music from an old CD player, and opening a coke bottle. I then wrote a poem and recorded different girls in my dorm each reading one word of the poem. Once transferring everything to my laptop and into Audacity, I used effects such as pink noise and low-pass filter and adjusted the volume to crescendo and decrescendo at dramatic points.

    The poem itself centers around a girl speaking to her implied lover. She commands them to “warn [her] now before the ocean bleeds dry,” suggesting that she wants them to tell her how they feel and what they want quickly, before time runs out. I chose an ocean metaphor to create a sense of nature and peace, which is juxtaposed by “bleeds,” which carries a more violent tone. This stark contrast is brought out through the sudden cuts to pink noise or loud crinkling noises and implies the speaker’s sense of urgency and needs to rush something that is natural. I also attempted to replicate the sounds of the ocean through crescendos and decrescendos in the shifting bedsheets like waves. “I am not afraid of love” is straightforward, indicating that the speaker is unafraid of what her lover will say. To further immerse the listener, I used impressionist music to emphasize the romantic tone but overlaid it with pink noise to create emotional conflict. All the voices reading the poem are female to represent the speaker herself, and I used different voices to create a sense of universality.