Storm Clouds

There's still that bloodstain on your collar; that spot where
my lips once pressed against the starched white cotton, mingling with the scent of
sun-soaked summer days. Your nervous sweat presses the smell into the air,
rusty after all this time. I can almost see it hanging overhead
like an oppressive cloud.

Do you remember the time you sliced your hand open punching glass?
Your fingers bled but you didn't seem to notice, too wrapped up in
being mad at me for your crooked tie. I could see you hold it all in, like
thunder in a glass bottle, and the cracks spread like spiderwebs.

With my eyes closed, I wished that you would just scream at me,
get everything out now with words rather than your red-stained fist.
Blood dripped from your skin to your freshly pressed shirt,
seeping in like rainwater into parched, sunbeaten soil.

I did my best to put everything in order just the way you like it
and quench the fire that burned in your eyes.
Don't pretend that I didn't try to stop things from falling apart. I really did,
worked and then cried when all of my efforts seemed to go awry midst your anger;
you used to be sweet. Guess people change behind closed doors,
don't they? 'Cause now everything throbs with the methodical rain-drumming of your roar
and the smell of bourbon sweated out of you, anger building and beading in the air
like condensation on a car window.

I have to wonder if it is all my fault-- maybe the things I overlooked and
dropped or didn't do well enough really did matter.
Maybe my mistakes were worth all the tornados and fly-by rages--
but sometimes, I wondered if you knew somewhere that they were minute.
Because once the drink had fled from your voice, I could sometimes find the
side-ways shame peeking out from beneath it.
There was regret. Guilt was hiding in there somewhere.

But I would always have to squint to see it, like staring into the sun.
That's what it was like, loving you: never knowing if I was handling a
match one day or a wildfire the next. Never knowing if
that guilt was from the black and blue storm clouds on my skin or
regret at leaving them where everyone else could see.



Thanks for reading!

Nice, pretty neat. In someway it's almost a a narrative poem , rather epic. I the story, picture and mood you painted where wonderful. This is a piece to make you think.

like an oppressive cloud.

Don't like this line, no idea why. You also use 'cause which sounds a little colloquial.

I'm running out of things to say. Anyway this a great poem!

Hey Persephoneia,
Thanks for giving me something to read!

Your nervous sweat presses the smell into the air,
rusty after all this time. I can almost see it hanging overhead
like an oppressive cloud.

I agree with Jennya that "like an oppresive cloud" doesn't sound good. I like the idea of a cloud to describe a smell, but oppresive? I think you can use a better word there.

Blood dripped from your skin to your freshly pressed shirt,
seeping in like rainwater into parched, sunbeaten soil.

Okay. Maybe I'm being a little too nit-picky, but as great as your analogy sounds, it doesn't make perfect sense. When water sinks into parched sunbeaten soil, the sand soaks it up and within a minute you don't notice that water seeped in to begin with. You will always notice a red stain on a white cotton shirt.

Well, those are my only critiques. Otherwise, this was great. Keep up the good work!
-Alex

As always, Perse, Great job! I would love to see more emotion in the third stanza! Good job though!

I could see you hold it all in,
like thunder in a glass bottle, and the cracks spread like spiderwebs.

You should remove the pronoun it and replace that with one of your similes then work off that into your next idea. The double simile doesn't work too well. It makes your writing less efficent.

seeping in like rainwater into parched, sunbeaten soil.

Parched and sunbeaten mean roughly the same thing. In my opinion, you should remove parched, because sunbeaten gives us more of an image to focus on.

I did my best to put everything in order just the way you like it
and quench the fire that burned in your eyes.
Don't pretend that I didn't try to stop things from falling apart. I really did,
worked and then...etc

My problem here is that we'll see / know these two lines just based off of everything else in the poem, and this all seems like useless description. We'll see in the same stanza that you cry when all your efforts fail, that is more concise and it moves onto your next points.
As for the fire in the eyes thing, I guess you could keep it, it does describe a little bit but not a whole lot. It really just reenforces other ideas in this poem, which is really unneeded. <- applies to the whole quote as well.

like condensation on a car window.

This isn't really a complete thought (it is but it isn't). You either have to remove this and get something else, or give condensation a verb of some kind, to make it relate more to what is being said. This is a calm image, unlike what is being said just before.

somewhere that they were minute.

You need to rewrite this part, I don't think minute is the word you wanted? If it is, it doesn't make too much sense.

Overall:
what you say is happening and then the images you try to give it don't always seem to really work. You're describing violent and angry things with peaceful things, like condensation, or a spider's web. I think you can take some of these ideas and use them from a different angle, like the spider's web one to help enbody that fear / violence.

You also have repetative ideas, like how you mention in stanzas four and five about how you're just trying to appease this person and you're not sure what you did wrong. You have what you should have, was it the burnt dinner or the dropped plate? These are the descriptions we should see, and not the consciousness of was it this or this...

You have the right description, it's just muddied.

Other than that, good job.

Good luck, keep writing;
Silented1.
PS. Sorry for the bad / vague review.