circles under my eyes

the bags beneath my eyes fill up with tears,
though none fall

they are oceans of sorrow, hidden,
only seen by others as shadows,
remnants of the weariness and agony inflicted
by having once been loved, and letting that love go
because you were too afraid of it

you've learned you should embrace love;
grasp it, and hold on as if your life depends on it,
because it does;
but you've learned too late

and this is the most tragic realization of all:
that love, once lost, cannot be regained;
that you turned your back on love
and fled

because you were too afraid of it

the bags beneath my eyes fill up with tears
and spill over,
an ocean drowning my heart in sorrow

*rubs temples* Okay. Here we go.

Point 1: Cliches are bad.

The bad news? Almost everything in this poem is a cliche. Oceans of sorrow, learning to hold onto love too late, being afraid of love--jeez Louise, you could probably fill a series of volumes big enough to rival the Encyclopedia Britannica with poems that center on this. Even worse? Most of those poems suck. Yours, luckily, has potential; you've proved that you have a grasp of the power of words, and your poetic voice is underdeveloped as of yet but really quite promising.

The good news? The one original image in this poem was fantastic. "the bags beneath my eyes fill up with tears, and spill over." I'll admit, the first incarnation of this left me a little unsatisfied, but the ending incarnation was lovely. I'd really advise you to concentrate on this and develop it.

Point 2: Punctuation is good.

You're a lot better than most writers on this site when it comes to punctuation, so instead of my usual diatribe, I'll keep it brief. You've shown that you have a good grasp of punctuation and the incredible effects it can have within the stanza, so why leave it off at the end? It leaves your reader feeling unsatisfied and a little uneasy, and it interrupts the flow. It's a different story if there logically shouldn't be punctuation there; but there should be, at the end of most stanzas here.

Fand is wise. Listen to him.

He pretty much said everything, though, so I'll just add one little nit-picky detail. There was one line that you repeated, "Because you were too afraid of it" Um, please don't. It has too many syllables, it's clunky, it's not very poetic at all. If you're ever rewriting this poem, think about that.

they are oceans of sorrow, hidden,
only seen by others as shadows,

This conjured up the image of marias for me - seas on the moon that are just acutally dry, darkened spots. I think that's a more creative take on "oceans of tears".

because you were too afraid of it

You use this twice, and I don't think it's the best to tack on to this poem. "because" is a very dry word for explination, and the structure of it just seems like a badly-answered question from a literacy schoolbook. I think if you reformed these seven words, the poem's quality could double.

These are two things that I think seem bad at first, but with some tweaking, could become the two extraordinary things about this poem.

It was okay. I won't say it was the best.
There wasn't any flow in this poem.

Sorry,but you should listen to fand. He be very wise and is very good.