Whatever Will I Do — Summary

Ezekiel DeanRomantic

Without hearing every word you speak And every single thought you think And watching every time you blink And your beautiful lips upon your drink

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Ezekiel Dean's poem is a single unfinished sentence. It begins with "Without," so the question in the title, "Whatever Will I Do," hangs over everything and never gets a stated answer. The speaker is saying, in effect, that they would be lost without the person they love, and they spell out exactly what they'd miss.

What stands out is how small the things are. It isn't grand gestures or big declarations. It's the other person's words, their thoughts, the way they blink, their lips on a drink. The speaker notices everything, which suggests a deep, slightly obsessive kind of devotion, where even ordinary moments feel precious.

The mood is tender and a little anxious. The repeated "every" gives the lines a breathless, list-like rhythm, as if the speaker could keep going forever. Leaving the sentence incomplete makes the feeling stronger: the loss is so hard to imagine that the speaker can't finish the thought.

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