Young Writers Society

Beautiful poem.

I love the way
you broke up the lines
in such interesting formats

I had to read this poem several times before making sense of it, and I am still not sure of the poem's exact intent. It is clear that the speaker addresses a preference to follow their heart, and not just the knowledge in their head that drops them "into the sea of skin." However, a little less stereotypically, you mentioned the interruptions that would occur by following ones heart, which seems to make complete sense, as the most desirable choice is not always the most right or most direct.

The first and last paragraph seem to convey the theme that the speaker is optimistic. They feel that if they follow themselves, they can accomplish anything. However, I found the middle two paragraphs contradictory to this, which really confused me.

So I kept reading the poem, and thinking, and I have come to the concluded that the idea is most likely that neither one's knowledge or desires alone can guide them on the proper path. (please let me know what was the intended purpose! i am very interested)

Anyways, great work, and keep writing
~Hadj

Hi!
To start off, I have to say I really like the idea behind this poem. The themes you explore here (being lost, doubt, finding oneself, etc.) are incredibly interesting and you have a pretty good handle on establishing that.
However, the second stanza loses the momentum you built in the first stanza. Also, because of this loss of momentum, the metaphor of the speaker's hand being the way home also disappears, which makes it very confusing when you read the lines "dropping me/into the sea of skin." I'm not sure "sea of skin" is the right choice of words to convey the path being followed from the speaker's hand. Maybe try emphasizing the metaphor by changing the wording of the second stanza starting from "the street is too short and narrow."
I think you also lost the metaphor in the third stanza, although I do love that it talks about curves and the stanza has a curved structure. (Sidenote: visually speaking, this poem is wonderful!). But the metaphor is missing and I think you should try to recapture it. I also like the idea of palmistry playing a big part in this poem and I would suggest incorporating more aspects of palmistry in the poem to create the mood you are going for.
I like the last stanza, although I feel it's very unimportant to end in a quatrain. Also, as a last note, you use the word "home" twice in this poem, once in the first stanza and once in the last stanza. They don't really have that profound of a meaning, but, in poetry, repetition usually does have a great significance. Because of that, I think you should slightly change the meaning of "home" in the first stanza to an actual location and "home" in the last stanza to a state of being.
Overall, I think this is a great poem and the premise behind it is amazing, but you do need to work on keeping a consistent theme (or metaphor) and mood.
Sincerely,
Dianne E.C.E.

Erm. Don't mind the little green marks under the commas or the "to" that was supposed to be "too." I'll fix those in a bit.