Hangover

You taste like alcohol and bad decisions,
like rockstar lives and hazy dreams;
you crack me open like a bottle of beer
just to throw me out when I’m empty.

And you cry stories down bottlenecks,
expecting them to answer you;
not seeing that I am the one who takes you home
when the bottles break all around you.

You kiss me like you kiss each bottle,
and drink me down ‘til I’m left with nothing.
And when I’m hollow,
shivering in a case with others just like me—
I’ll wonder
if I’m the one with the hangover.

I absolutely LOVE this poem! It's so symbolic (obviously) and so well put. I started reading this hoping to God it wasn't something stupid. I'm not a fan of stupid poetry. This, how ever, was powerful from the start. I think my favorite is the beginning. This is the kind of poetry I wish I could do. I read a lot that compare and such, and the best I could vomit was something about paper airplanes. Great job

This speaks loudly
It is really mature and yet, you've managed to make it still really full of emotion.
I just love emotional poems
So, yep. Use of descriptive words = tick
I thought that this poem was fantastic; but for me, and for my taste, I think I would have preferred it to be just a little more dramatic. And that's all But this is your poem and it's just great, so Well Done Xx

Hey there, Knightly! Lils here!

Because I like this, a lot, I really want to make a few word choice suggestions, most especially with the first stanza.

You taste like alcohol and bad decisions,
and like rockstar lives and hazy dreams;
you open me up crack me open like a bottle of beer
just to throw me out when I’m empty.

The first one was mostly because “and” felt a bit repetitive I thought. And here you get a little bit of parallelism too.
The second was because of the fact that “open” is such a boring word if you ask me. “Crack” has a little more of a solid feel to it, a noise that you can hear even in the word and it kind of has that double meaning.

And you’ve cried stories down bottlenecks,
expecting them to answer you;
not seeing that I was the one who took you home
when the bottles broke all around you.

Here, I feel I really must point out that you did change from present tense (in the first stanza) to past tense (in the second), something you really have to be careful about.

You kiss me like you would kiss a each bottle,
and drink me down ‘til I’m left with nothing.
And when I’m hollow,
shivering in a case with others just like me—
I’ll wonder

If I’m the one with the hangover.

Two things. In the first line “would” feels rather wrong. You’ve already established quite well that he’s been “kissing” these bottles. Your idea feels a little more solid, I think, if that makes sense. (The other little tweaks I made were to maintain your rhythm.)
The other thing had to do with your punctuation at the end. I think it’s the fact that I dislike ending any stanza without any sort of punctuation mark. But I think, in a way, making the last line independent isn’t the most necessary thing in the world. It really belongs in the third stanza. Otherwise, to me, it feels like it’s just dangling off on its own rather meekly.



I have to say, I love this and I’m so glad that you wrote it. After the night I had last night, it hit me but in a good way and helped me sort of evaluate where I and this guy I’ve been sort of seeing stand. So, thank you. Thank you very much.

If you have any questions about the review, let me know.

~lilymoore

I just want to write that I completely love this. It feels so...edgy and rugged in poetry ways in sense that it flows like a broken jigsaw puzzle. That is a compliment by the way. It's different than the usual standard poetry and I would love if you kept writing.