How it Feels to Drown

A/N: A simple experimentation. I am trying to get into a person's head when a situation is happening. So in this case, a rushed confusion and mess of feelings caused by drowning.
This is probably a total train wreck, but it was worth a shot. Enjoy! ^^

EDIT: It's supposed to be run on. Just FWI. XD

--

The first explosive impact sets off a ricochet of charges through willowy tissues, taunt with spiteful, precise needles threading themselves from the cusps to the core, that shudders under an inky weight, in the center of your chest, slowing under pressure that too soon is meaningless as is the Sun that breaks through the surface to remind you of the airy skies above.

But you like it here, down below where feathered fingers beckon you deeper with honey sweet words, thick on your tongue, lolling in your head and dribbling over your eyes until the world is painted in blue piloncillo, with clotted bands of syrup pulled around you, pulled until they are a spidery, delicate twine, melting on your tongue with your taste buds who become immersed in their own indulgence, a glowing pleasure that abruptly becomes cloying. Exorbitantly candied savors makes the lead laced fog lift, you miss the tartness of oxygen, the cool noxious cocktail of fumes intermingled with the clouds.

But it's too late, the feathered fingers have dug in their claws, words of the seductive death pouring over pale blue lips, utterances that become sticky like taffy, your fingers claw upwards to break the hardened caramel of your surroundings, too thick, too thin, float on down, before you realize, maybe it isn't so bad to die.

Pshhh this wasn't a train wreck at all. It's actually really good. Like, really really good.

The only problem is that nearly all the sentences are run-ons. But this is easily edited, just break them up.

Either way, I really like it. It made me sad, haha. It kind of reminds me of the death scene in the Sixth Sense (it doesn't even hurt anymore).

Sorry, that wasn't helpful at all. Yeeeee.
-Lena.

I love the wording in this. It's beautiful.

Hey Kammie!
This wasn't a train wreck at all. It's good. I like the flow.

that shudders under aan inky weight

I think it should've been an. Just a typo.

pulled until with are a spidery delicate twine,

I don't quite get this. pulled until, fine, with are a spidery delicate twine?

So, the first and the last paras are really good. But, I think the first few thoughts should run along 'How the hell do I get out?' or fear. It would make it sound a bit more realistic.
The second para is good, but I'm not able to point out something that pricks me. Maybe someone else can tell.

Anyway, awesome work! And I hope I helped out a bit.
~Lava

P.S. The last para is awesome. I just love it.

Thanks for the comments guys ^^
Lava, you make a good point. I might add that feeling in. I was trying to get across an array of feelings through this piece. Run-on sentence for a shortness of breath, overlapping thoughts for that sort of drowsy confusion, I'm not sure if that was effective though.

Thanks anyways.

Kamas

Hey, Kamas! So... I couldn't stay away. Homework will fall by the wayside until I review this. This was very cool! You are very brave to experiment with something like this and you are on your way to making this work beautifully! You are such a poet. ^^ I love it.

So, you have an extremely elaborate writing style, one that is very much grounded in poetry with a lot of abstract by appropriate images. You're doing pretty well there; I can feel the images you are giving me clearly and I like that. You've mastered the art of appealing to the senses, and that's great. There were only two issues I had with this piece. One, wordiness. Two, the flow.

First, the wordiness. Now, you are great at choosing words--all of the words you did choose had powerful connotations, but you use a whole lot of adjectives in this, enough that the writing takes on this dreamlike, mouthful feel. It's not all bad, but I think if you cut down on the some of the adjectives and used some more powerful nouns, it would help with this.

The first explosive impact sets off a ricochet of charges through willowy tissues, taunt with spiteful, precise needles threading themselves from the cusps to the core, that shudders under an inky weight, in the center of your chest, slowing under pressure that too soon is meaningless as is the Sun that breaks through the surface to remind you of the airy skies above.

Your first paragraph, for instance. Lots of adjectives. I don't know about you but personally when you say 'taut with needles', it sounds a whole lot more chilling than 'taut with spiteful, precise needles'. The adjectives sort of cover up the power of that noun and it's detracting from the emotion and the strength of the words you have chosen. You don't have to get rid of all that adjectives, but really think about what's necessary and what would be more powerful without adjectives.

Second problem with this piece is the flow. Now, I love that you are not afraid to use the run-on sentences. I admire that and it's a great tool, but you mentioned that you're trying to make the prose feel out of breath, like the writing itself is drowning, but this feels like a float down a river of words to me, not like I'm gasping for air. Why? Because the breaks in the flow are consistent. Three paragraphs, one sentence each, generally. About the same length, lots of rhthmical phrases. In poetry, line breaks help achieve the stops. If this were in stanzas, it would feel more like suffocating. But it's not, so I think varying the flow is necessary. When I think short of breath, I think irregular rhythm and chaos. Fragments mixed in with run-on sentences mixed in with short sentences mixed in with long sentences mixed in one with one word set apart. Of course, it's up to you what kind of flow you want, but this doesn't really feel like drowning to me.

Read it aloud and play with the rhythm until YOU feel out of breath. Don't be afraid to make frantic sentence stops in the writing. This piece is good, but it just doesn't feel like drowning yet. I would experiment with it and see what kind of rhythms and sentences work. Right now it just seems to flow too well altogether, where I think a mixture of that deadly stillness and the choking, out of breath aspect would work best mixed together. Does that make sense?

All in all, I liked this a lot! Very nice job here and I love seeing you writing prose! You have a lot of great stuff here and I can't wait to see what you do with it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions! ^^

Hi Kamas,

Kamas wrote:The first explosive impact sets off a ricochet of charges through willowy tissues, taunt with spiteful, precise needles threading themselves from the cusps to the core, that shudders under an inky weight, in the center of your chest, slowing under pressure that too soon is meaningless as is the Sun that breaks through the surface to remind you of the airy skies above.

This runs on for too long. I'm usually not a stickler for sentence length and format, but this is taking things too far. A four-line paragraph, really? Split it apart. I see that you were trying to make a point about physical desperation here, but there is a time when device becomes gimmick, and you're rapidly crossing that line. Don't go overboard with your drowning representation.

As to your imagery, it is better than it was in your previous works. Ideally, commendation would be in order; however...

But you like it here, down below where feathered fingers beckon you deeper with honey sweet words, thick on your tongue, lolling in your head and dribbling over your eyes until the world is painted in blue piloncillo, with clotted bands of syrup pulled around you, pulled until they are a spidery, delicate twine, melting on your tongue with your taste buds who become immersed in their own indulgence, a glowing pleasure that abruptly becomes cloying. Exorbitantly candied savors makes the lead laced fog lift, you miss the tartness of oxygen, the cool noxious cocktail of fumes intermingled with the clouds.

Here, your imagery takes a wild spin to some fantasy land where connections are made like nooses. Feathered fingers? This has potential, so use it, and don't reserve all that energy to a day that will never come. I can sense a weak connection between the feathers and the airy skies above that you mentioned in your last paragraph; but unlike the Sun, it doesn't shine through the waters of comprehension, and instead all we get is this jarring display of an unfinished building. You've lain the foundations, now do something about them. Feathered. Birds. Birds of the sea, fish swimming around you like mermaids, all waiting to loot your pockets after you die? Perhaps. Work on the imagery is what I'm saying.

The same thing goes with the cocktail illusion.

But it's too late, the feathered fingers have dug in their claws, words of the seductive death pouring over pale blue lips, utterances that become sticky like taffy, your fingers claw upwards to break the hardened caramel of your surroundings, too thick, too thin, float on down, before you realize, maybe it isn't so bad to die.

The entire "But it's too late" dealio. It fails to sustain your last paragraph or itself. So you have us going for a ride there, the double helix of death winding around your neck and squeezing until the bone marrow dries like a parched pile of bones and then -

It's too late! ...What? You lead us on to give us this half-baked truth? And where did the entire "maybe it isn't so bad to die" thing come from? How do you build up to this, how can you possibly build up to some overarching, falsely philosophizing about something or another that's utterly unsatisfying. This entire paragraph is unsatisfying. This entire story is unsatisfying because of the subpar end. Discard it and come up with a better version of trying to justify the meaning(lessness) of the piece by resorting to acceptance. Fuse emotions with reason, that's the thing that you're missing. All you have here is a belated dissertation, a passionless college lecture of events and an attempt to "explain" the emotion. Let the emotion out and then rally it, not the other way around.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

Phew, let me take a moment to breath. :p

That poem was definitely a mouthful but that doesn't make it bad. The only thing that worries me is that it feels gimmicky when you make the whole thing run-on. Maybe that's just me.

As wonderfully engrossing as it is, I felt like half-way through I lost track of what it was you were actually talking about.

Otherwise, excellent use of vocabulary and the taste you gave me left me wanting to read more of your works.