Suicide

They told me you were spread on the ground
beneath a forest of trees where the leaves resembled photographs
and flashed my face at you in the breeze,
and the grass made of careful cursive brushed across your marble skin,
and the birds sang out in my voice,
chirping tones of joy and adventure and love
while others screamed hoarsely of despair.
We could have walked there together,
and then the trees would have been trees,
the grass would have been grass,
and the birds would have been birds
But instead you walked alone,
so that it all became me.
I should have let you leave me alone.
Now there’s nothing more to say,
nothing to alter,
but only time to walk alone myself
and try to heal:

In my heart,
you were already dead anyways.

Well, that was really depressing.
But, I've noticed, you sometimes take the depressing route with your work.
i really have nothing too critical, except, to break your work up into to stanzas. Easier to read, and it gives it a nice flow.
Thats it! Nice job, keep working
~WickedWonder

My nitpicks are pretty much the same as wickedwonder's. Aside from that, it was a pretty good poem.

TIGERSPRITE

Hi there, BlueAfrica

That was good. I liked it. Yes it's depressing, but honestly, what isn't depressing when you're a teenager? I loved the way you wrote it. The emotions were touching.
I have to agree with the other two who reviewed. Breaking it into stenzas will help the flow. But appart from that, it was awesome.

Keep writing!
-Other One

Thanks for your comments. Yes, it's depressing, but...well, I went through a phase for like...*cough cough* all of high school. Now that I'm in my second year of college and removed from the things I was going through then, I'm a much happier person. (It doesn't hurt that I also like myself now.) But yeah, most of the old poetry I post is going to be depressing, unless I post REALLY old poetry - which would be bad instead of depressing, so I probably won't post that stuff unless I ever get around to editing it severely...

^_^

~Blue

AHH! Chunky! Space out your writing a little better. I liked it though, I really did.

But instead you walked alone,
so that it all became me.
I should have let you leave me alone.

This part made no sense to me, what so ever.

In my heart,you were already dead anyways.

I'll admit it, I started to tear up here. But it's anyway, not anyways.

Hey Blue,

I like the images you've developped at the beginning of this--the photographs, the writing: they're a nice way of showing the "past" aspect of it. Watch out for repetition though, as you undermine yourself a couple times through it:

a forest of trees

First thing I saw, and was an instant turn off. It's obvious, it's redundant. Take off the "of trees" and keep "forest", it'll be more than enough.

and the grass made of careful cursive brushed across your marble skin,

The wording here is too clunky. Something like "the careful cursive of the grass" would flow better, IMO, and add to the image. Also, and this might be a matter of personal preference, but "marble skin" is a very overdone image--change it?

We could have walked there together,
and then the trees would have been trees,
the grass would have been grass,
and the birds would have been birds
But instead you walked alone,
so that it all became me.

The idea here is nice, but the first three lines are again very repetitive/obvious. Try reworking this part to make the transition smoother and lighter.

I should have let you leave me alone.

Contradictory: the problem seems to stem from the two people to have been apart, so that the speaker should have let the other keep a distance sounds strange, to say the least.

and try to heal:

I'd suggest making this a period: it's more final, and the colon is not very appropriate.

Hi Blue!

I like the way you began this, the images of photographs and cursive are lovely. I like the flow, that was great. There are a few places with redundancies, but those are easily fixed. While you had the images from the beginning, "marble skin" kind of...stuck out. I'm not sure how to word it, but I didn't like it because, honestly, it's hackneyed. Next time, break the poem up into stanzas to get rid of that pesky wall-of-text effect.

In my heart,
you were already dead anyways.

I love this. Except it's "anyway" rather than "anyways."

Good job!
~Spork

Thank you to everyone who told me "anyway," I can never, ever, ever, EVER remember which one to use in which instance! (Is there a rule for that? Because it would be really useful to know.)

I realize there are some redundancies...I actually did try to change "forest of trees" once, because that is especially redundant...obviously, if it's a forest, it's trees. DUH. But I couldn't come up with anything good...I tried "deciduous forest" to be more specific - you know, deciduous trees rather than evergreens and without saying "trees" at all - what do you guys think? Just read through it and replace "forest of trees" with "deciduous forest" and tell me what you think...

I do like "marble skin," so, sorry, but I think I'm keeping that.

Okay, think that's all I have to say about that at the moment...Oh, wait, no:

Um, okay, the line "I should have let you leave me alone."

Well...this poem is another therapeutic one - a lot of my poems from this time period ("this" as in when "Suicide" was written, not "this" as in right now) are basically about the same thing...so there are things in them that make sense to me but no one else. Although I find that's true of a lot of poems - if you read them knowing nothing or very little about the poets' lives, chunks of them don't make sense. Which is okay. In this case, it's just that I kept writing to someone who was very far away - and he didn't actually commit suicide, by the way, he's alive and well to my knowledge; I know it's kind of sick but this was just sort of me imagining how I'd feel if I heard he HAD committed suicide, and if it had been because I kept writing and writing and writing even though he stopped writing back.

Yes, I was crazy.

But I'm better now.

The poetry helped.

Anyways, that's the story behind that line (in brief and with little detail)...but it's probably my least favorite line, even though it sort of feels necessary. In a way. If you have any suggestions for how it could be better written/clearer/or changed, please leave them below...

I've tried omitting it, too, but then it feels (to me) like it's missing something.

Okay, that's really it for now.

I didn't read anyone's comments, expect like, the first two, so if I say anything repetitive, I didn't know.

Anyway.

I. loved. it.
Now, I loved it until a certain part.

For me the beginning was amazing and it really drew me in.

They told me you were spread on the ground
beneath a forest of trees where the leaves resembled photographs
and flashed my face at you in the breeze,
and the grass made of careful cursive brushed across your marble skin,

Just the imagery in particular at this start is gorgeous and I really enjoyed it. Especially the line about the grass relating to cursive. Fantastic.

We could have walked there together,
and then the trees would have been trees,
the grass would have been grass,
and the birds would have been birds
But instead you walked alone,
so that it all became me.

I like this, too. It was a good relation to the beginning, kind of circling it all up to make it make sense. It adds more depth to the poem as well.

I should have let you leave me alone.
Now there’s nothing more to say,
nothing to alter,
but only time to walk alone myself
and try to heal:

In my heart,
you were already dead anyways.

Now... this last part is where you kind of fall apart. I believe someone else said something about this as I scanned through comments on my way down, but it felt like something was missing.
Suicide's a hard topic to write about because it's a very common topic. It's usually filled with pain and despair and depression; lots of imagery of tears and blood and such.
Yet I love how you make it out to be so... pretty in the beginning, as weird as that sounds. And how it doesn't directly come to the narrator, but more like, "They told me..." And this was unique and different to me.

But these last parts (quoted above) weren't just working for me... It kind of got boring and unoriginal. You had such an independent piece going, but the end just fell apart, because you used lines and such that are commonly found. "...only time to walk alone myself...", "...try to heal...", "...in my heart..." and, "...already dead anyways": These were all very bland and boring. They didn't seem uninspired. Now, I know I have no idea about your life or how you may have been inspired to write this, so I don't want to sound rude or anything if it's something you can actually relate to, it's just my opinion that it became a little artificial around this point. And perhaps it's just the chaos of trying to wrap up a poem in the end; I know finishes can be hard to deal with. Perhaps you could try spicing it up some more, or twisting it up to give it a new feel than the normal you see with death, and sadness, and despair, and such.

Other than that, you really have a good poem, I do believe so. I liked it a lot, like I said, until that point. So that would the only thing I would advise to fix it up and consider carefully on how you decide to finish the poem. The end needs to be just as strong as the beginning and leave a mark on the reader. Whether it actually ties things up, or leaves the reader wanting more, or leaves them in midst of a thought process that intrigues them.

Sorry if this was all crappy advice... I don't know what else I can do to advise you... I mean, you're the poet so it's your poem and you can do whatever you want with it.
Just thought I'd have my say in it. : )

i personally like this, it makes me think of past time and i like how you decribed. It would be much easier to read in stanzas but over all i like tthe work.

Hi BlueAfrica -

First comment: I vote for a title change. This piece is exceedingly enchanting and the blatantly obvious title you've got up there does it absolutely no justice whatsoever.

That said, your enchantment wears off throughout the piece distinctly unsatisfactorily, and there are very simple ways to edit this so they don't. Let's take a look at it, shall we?

They told me you were spread on the ground

Wonderful opening line. Arresting, saying everything and nothing at once.

beneath a forest of trees where the leaves resembled photographs
and flashed my face at you in the breeze,
and the grass made of careful cursive brushed across your marble skin,

I have the same difficulty as Jagg here. Forest of trees - one can, I suppose, slur-read over that line what with the flow you've got going here, and ignore it entirely, but this is a poem to be read and reread, yes? So there must be no redundancies like this.

Here are the sores in the smooth skin of your poem:

(1) The unnecessary 'trees' - trust me; your flow will not be lost if you remove this word: allow me to suggest the following change - 'a forest of leaves like photographs scattered' (and note how you still maintain aural flow with the assonance of 'graphs,' 'scattered' and 'flashed').

(2) Something about the 'breeze' irks me and I think it is the fact that forests, trees, breeze is such an obvious association that it's cliché. I mind clichés less when the flow is good – like it is here – but I hate how people use the word ‘breeze’ instead of ‘wind’ in an effort to be more poetic…and it is this very obviousness of the effort that throws its poeticism out the window. I think the poem would read just fine if you had ‘wind’ there instead.

(3) Ah, I must echo Jagged. ‘Marble’ is out; a rearrangement to that third line, and it will become as beautiful as the rest. Currently, the words get whooshed over – also not doing justice to the image. Here is the smallest change I could think of: ‘and the grass a careful cursive brush across your skin.’

and the birds sang out in my voice,
chirping tones of joy and adventure and love

Trees, wind, grass, birds, joy, love. The reader can only take so much of a cliché. Either throw something poignant and inventive here – something the reader actually needs to imagine; like those photographs, for example, which you used earlier (but don’t repeat that here) – or, if you can’t think of something tasteful and distinct to bring to the piece, then nix this part entirely.

It’s not bad per se, but it could be a lot better.

while others screamed hoarsely of despair.

I rather liked the intensity of the focus you had between the two characters – a rather global, all-nature-encompassing sort of feeling, like they were the only two alive – than what you bring in here. Mention of the ‘others’ intrudes on this moment of personal reflection and experience.

We could have walked there together

No complaints. I like the imagery-less-ness. Perhaps that, then, is the issue with some of the above parts – they could do with a healthy dose of literalism, although I daresay that might destroy the lyricism to the poem somewhat.

and then the trees would have been trees,
the grass would have been grass,
and the birds would have been birds

Something I’d like to say here: anything I suggested above is a small fault, just a miscalculation here, a blemish there. From this above quote onwards, it’s much larger, the problem.

There’s nothing remotely enlightening about ‘trees would have been trees’ etc etc etc. There’s nothing striking about it, or emotional, even – it’s there for the sake of being there, filling up space; it does nothing – actually, it does worse than nothing: it is shattering the confident poetry you had before. The reader has, at this point, lost all faith in your ability to tell a meaningful story through your poem.

Remove, replace. I want to see more of that delicateness you’ve got at the start, not this childishly sloppy ‘this would have been this’.

But instead you walked alone,
so that it all became me.

Just so you know: I do see the metaphor. ‘If you and I had been together, then you and I and the world would have been distinct entities; but you died, so the world became me and I became the world and I was swallowed up in sadness and the world.’

I just think it hasn’t been handled very artfully in the ‘trees would have been trees…’ part.

Sure, there’s still potential for this metaphor – I advise you to keep working at it, keep rephrasing it so that not only what you’re saying comes across, but, somewhat more importantly, it comes across more pleasantly in terms of how you say it. It’s just meh right now. You can do better than meh. What about playing with the theme of distance and closeness, like you’ve hinted in the photos? Something like, ‘We could have walked there together / skin bridging the gap from ground to sky / points of touch in vastness / but you walked alone and I / am left without the blur of the horizon, just / galaxies crushed in dirt.’

A suggestion, is all. Probably too abstract for my liking, even, but I hold out hope you will improve on it.

Now there’s nothing more to say,
nothing to alter,
but only time to walk alone myself
and try to heal:

In my heart,
you were already dead anyways.

This means nothing precisely because it tries too hard and too desperately to mean something. Don’t murder your style here, at the very end, with teenage-diary sentimentality; you’ve shown a certain sophistication earlier on and you would do well to keep to that, since that is what the reader essentially enjoys. End it earlier and spare us from this, if there is no way to continue the metaphor you had before.

Good luck with edits. PM me if you have any questions / comments.

Navita

Okay, a lot to address here today, but let's see what I can come up with...

First of all, if anyone has title suggestions for me, I will consider changing the title...otherwise it's staying that way. No need to be coy and metaphorical in the title. It's about suicide, end of story. William Carlos Williams entitled a poem about a red wheelbarrow "The Red Wheelbarrow." Sometimes that's the way to go, know what I'm saying?

I do like the last two lines - those are actually the lines that came to mind first and which inspired the rest of the poem.

However I don't really like "I should have let you leave me alone" and will work on improving that at some point in the near future (hopefully - I have to sit down with the whole poem and go from there. Just changing that one line could destroy the poem, if I change it the wrong way). And I'm not sure of "Now there's nothing more to alter" just because it sounds too much like a line in the song "Written in the Stars," and I don't want to feel like I'm using someone else's words...it's probably largely because I had that song in my head a lot at the time this poem was written. Not that I'm making excuses - that's just a fact: It was in my head a lot. (I have an iPod Touch in my brain.)

The metaphor mentioned, the whole "the trees would have been trees" thing onwards: I did not actually think about it while I was writing it - I often don't intentionally add metaphors or symbolism to my poetry (only about half the time); they just sort of happen. But it does not mean what you thought, about the narrator saying, "the world was a separate entity but then he died and so I'm just part of the world/the world is part of me blah blah blah." It's actually that, if the narrator and this boy were together, they could have been in this place (a park or the world or whatever you want) together and it would have been just that - a beautiful place. Instead, since the boy went his separate way, the place started reminding him of the girl, which is why "it all became me." Also, if it had been that the girl was swallowed up in sadness, etc, it would make no sense with the last line - the point is that she can't feel as much as she probably ought to over this boy's death, just sort of a distant dispiritedness and grim resignation, because her love for him was in its death throes, so to speak.

So technically, you actually did not get the metaphor, but it interested me to see what you thought it meant, because it always interests me to see how people interpret my poetry - the way I always wonder, in English class when we're dissecting some famous poem, if we're actually interpreting it the way the poet meant it or if the poet would be laughing his butt off if he could hear some of the stuff we're coming up with. Just because experts have said that this part of the poem meant this, doesn't mean it really does mean that - unless the experts asked the poet. And did they? My bet is, of course not!

I wasn't figurative in this part because, I just wasn't. The trees would've been trees, and so forth. Simplicity. Sometimes I feel like just saying what I mean.

And, "the others" that were mentioned - those are other birds, not other people than the boy and the narrator. The birds speak in her voice, joy for when she loved him and everything was dandy, despair for when things were going wrong. That's all. So there aren't suddenly other PEOPLE - just different birds for the different feelings she's had while going through everything they've been through together.

I really wasn't trying too hard with this - except for the "I should have let you leave me alone" stanza (up UNTIL the last two lines), it was very easy to write. And again, another therapeutic poem, and except for that line (and sort of that stanza, but mostly that line) I liked the way it turned out.

Still I'm appreciative of suggestions, especially since no one on other sites ever gives me any!!!

All for now,
Blue

Oh my god!!!!! Wow wow wow.
Ok, so this was amazing. I don't get everyone else's problems.. I mean have they READ this genius?
You are a really good writer, I hope you know that.
I don't have time for a real review but I'm struck speechless!!!

Haha, thanks. And I like most of it the way it is, myself, but I do find others' opinions helpful.