Hopeless tears

Tears of hope run down my skin.
Hope, vain as it may be, never dies,
never cries,
never bothers to decide
that hope has no place in my heart.

The only thing they do
is wash out the last traces of belief.
They drain the mind of all resistance
to the idea you're never going to be the same
not after so long this way.

Tears of hope should not exist
they only run you dry.
You remember the past,
each memory a drop of water,
each stain on the carpet another reminder.

Tears only break you, drain you,
force you to accept what you never wanted to be.
The past is over, no amount of tears can change that.
They only lead to sleepless nights and heartless dreams.
Tears of hope run down my skin all the same.

~

A/N- "Tears of hope run down my skin" is from the Josh Groban song Remember when it rained.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Tears of hope run down my skin.
Hope, vane as it may be, never dies, vain, not vane
never cries,
never bothers to decide
that hope has no place here.

The very last line of the stanza above does not seem to fit. Try changing that to but, perhaps? To make continuity in this stanza.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Tears, the only thing they do
is wash out the last traces of belief. Lovely. Brilliant idea in these two lines
They drain the mind of all resistance
to the idea you're never going to be the same
not after so long this way.

Maybe you could put 'that' between idea and you're. It's not exactly necessary but it's slightly confusing. Also, in comparison to the first two lines, the lines that follow are much weaker, in terms of impact to the reader. It also isn't that vivid.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:Tears only break you, drain you,
force you to accept what you never wanted to be.
The past is over, no amount of tears can change that.
They only lead to sleepless nights and heartless dreams.
Tears of hope run down my skin all the same.

To tell you the truth, when I first read the stanza above it struck me as a cliche about tears and the preturbation of feelings. I thought it would make a rather weak ending for this poem but the very last line, a simple straight-forward line was perfect. It added a strength to the last stanza. Sort of like all the lines above it were things the person felt and knew, cliched in her mind but still she shall hope. Powerful, indeed.

This is a great poem but I believe that some of your other poems are better than this. Anyway, good luck with writing and keep the brilliant work up.

--Knightly

Hello, hello!

Hope, vain as it may be, never dies,

I like this first stanza, it has a good rhythm.

[s]Tears,[/s] the only thing they do

I'm not sure you need 'tears' here; I like the line better without it. Alternatively you could replace 'they' with 'tears' - I just don't like the single word and then comma. Kind of sounds like a bad country song.

They drain the mind of all resistance
to the idea you're never going to be the same
not after so long this way.

Not sure exactly what the last three lines mean. You're not going to be the same after staying the same for so long? I love the idea, but I think it might be better with less words; I mean, you could even cut out all of they drain the mind of all resistance to the idea and you'd still have the same idea, but without all those words that the reader has to wade through.

Just a suggestion, a course. ^_^

each stain on the carpet another reminder.

I could not love this whole stanza more. I love this stanza, but I especially love the last line.

Tears of hope run down my skin all the same.

And I like the ending too. I wasn't sure you would be able to, but you tied it all together very nicely. Definitely ends the poem on a slightly...hopeful, but sad note, and also leaves me with a sense of futility.

<3
-Mars

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this poem, to be honest. XD It's an interesting idea, but the angle is a little bit weird. I think that the reason I'm not quite connecting here is the lack of a foundation.

"Tears this, tears that, tears eat babies for breakfast, etc" you say (I'm paraphrasing xD) but, er, the narrator gives us no context in which to agree or disagree. Your alcoholic dad just got over his addiction and then was run over by a car. Or, uh, something that would give you tears of hope. (Also: Tears of hope? Buh? I can only speak for myself but I have really no idea how that would work. See paragraph one. Lol)

Tears of hope run down my skin.

Hope, vane as it may be, never dies,

never cries,

never bothers to decide

that hope has no place here.

Dies/cries/decide. It's a nice little scheme, but you don't follow up on it. To top that off, you've got a stanza division with a look that suggests meter. I get how you need it what with your "topic" division, but the reader looks at this, thinks "traditional" and then reads free-verse. Not smooth.

Okay, onto the actual poem. xD

Tears of hope run down my skin. They're in a marathon. And the rest of the stanza has nothing to do with this line. As previously pointed out by other members: Vain, not vane. Vane refers to a weathervane, if memory serves. xD

So anyway, hope never dies, cries or decides that it has no place...here. That's a tad "bwuh?" but it's not the personification. It's the odd wording. Where is here, anyway?

Tears, the only thing they do

is wash out the last traces of belief.

They drain the mind of all resistance

to the idea you're never going to be the same

not after so long this way.

I agree about the country song feeling in the first line. xD This stanza is kind of nondescript and rather expected. After line #2, I feel I know exactly what is coming.

So, why is this resistance to ideas bad? Some context, some sort of reference, would be great.

Tears of hope should not exist

they only run you dry.

You remember the past,

each memory a drop of water,

each stain on the carpet another reminder.

The only phrase I find intriguing here is the last -- "stain on the carpet." To me, that suggests a lot of things -- alcohol. Drugs. Throwing up from when you were little. Child abuse? And that's very intriguing. If you gave this thing a little bit of backstory, that would make it a whole lot more lucid.

Otherwise, not really impressed by this stanza.

Tears only break you, drain you,

force you to accept what you never wanted to be.

The past is over, no amount of tears can change that.

They only lead to sleepless nights and heartless dreams.

Tears of hope run down my skin all the same.

Want to know something interesting? Your very last line is iambic. Meaning, iambic pentameter: ten beats per line. This is what Shakespeare wrote in, and it's a ton of fun to read aloud if it rhymes.

Bearing that in mind, if I were to read the last line alone, I would totally read the poem based on the assumption that A) it was iambic and B) it rhymed (same/came/lame/shame/frame, whatever). Also because this line has a glimmer of personality. It's conceding that the narrator has lost the fight, and it sounds a little joyful even (that may be just me).

Looking back at this, I think what I would do is gut 90% of it and keep a just a few lines and work with those. I'm not really deriving any meaning from any of it. Add context: means and motive and opportunity and whatnot. I think that if you can identify your voice, it will really bring this thing together.

[/ramble]

Sumi

Typo fixed!

Mars- Oh, yes, I see your point. Methinks I'll reword the stanzas so "tears" doesn't begin every one. And the ending is a favourite of mine too. ^_^

Sumi- um, Wow. I knew it needed help, but I didn't think it needed that much help. xD I do think I'll gut a lot of this and work with just my favourite lines.

Oddly, the context is my friend having visited and I wrote this a few hours after she'd left. I knew crying wouldn't bring her back, but I still cried in the hope that she was.

Maybe I'll make the context darker...

Thing is, I'd like to keep this rather vague so people can fill their own feeling with. This shall be interesting.

Thanks all!

~Rosey

I think that this is really good!

Like I've said to many people before, I'm a rubbish critique so I'm going to write a nkce review!

I really like the idea of the poem. It's original and in my opinion anyway, it's a very clever, effective theme to write about.

I must say though, I'm not sure if it's just me but some parts of the poem are a tad bit unclear lik the lines -
They drain the mind of all resistance
to the idea you're never going to be the same
not after so long this way.

I think someone else might have said that actually

My favourite part of the poem was probably the last line. It was reall yeffective and in my opinion, imaginative! Well done for that!

Overall, I really did like your poem!

Hope I helped a bit!

Meg xoxo