Worse Places

A/N: This was origanally freeform... I'm not sure how I feel about the line breaks, so please let me know if they work or not. Thanks =]

I’ve been to worse places than this, I think,
As I wake up with a knife in my bed
Like a child wakes up with a teddy bear.

I have slept with Loneliness before
Curled up close against my hipbone,
One lazy arm slung around my neck
After I’ve tired him out with arguments
And he’s thrown his accusations at me.

His whiskey stench hits between my eyes
Like every punch he’s thrown in his stupor;
And for a moment I can't breathe. But
He doesn’t know that I’ve learned how
To see through lies and empty promises.

He’s snoring as I pick up the knife
And smile at my once good friend
Who knew how to crawl under my skin.
I curl it into Loneliness’ spidery fingers
And place it where his heart would be.
They won’t bother me anymore, I think,
Because I’m in a much better place now.

First I was like "...", then I was like "-.O', then I was like "..wtf? -fear-"

In the first three lines I was worried, concerned for everyone's safety. Literately. It caught my attention. That's your hook, and it's very effective.

The second paragraph took me a second to decipher, but then I realized how you referred to living with him being the same as living alone.

The third stanza digs even further, getting into physical AND emotional abuse. That kind of stuff really gets to me, so that part both silenced and enraged me. You connected with the general audience; perfect.

On the final stanza, I got a tad confused again. Her abusive relationship caused self-harm, that;s easy to understand. Who died though?

Overall, I can honestly say that this poem kind of frightened me. I like it. Keep going
--Brandon
Xoxo

Splodey, doll, I'm gonna try to do this. No grantee that this will help. But here goes.

I’ve been to worse places than this, I think,
As I wake up with a knife in my bed
Like a child wakes up with a teddy bear.

Mkay, this part is a wonderful simile. The comparing the knife to a teddy bear, I thought, was really smart.

I have slept with Loneliness before
Curled up close against my hipbone,
One lazy arm slung around my neck
After I’ve tired him out with arguments
And he’s thrown his accusations at me.

This part made me think back to the knife, I wondered what was going to happen and I loved the way you tied this in, putting it in the second stanza instead of opening with this. I think there should be a comma after "before". And you can get rid of close; if it is against her we know it's close.

His whiskey stench hits between my eyes
Like every punch he’s thrown in his stupor;
And for a moment I can't breathe. But
He doesn’t know that I’ve learned how
To see through lies and empty promises.

Love this first line. It's like a play on words sort of (or that's how I read it). Like how you have a hang over when you drink a lot of whiskey and you have a headache, like a punch. Then it's the actual overwhelming-ness of the smell of alcohol and then the act of comparing it to physical abuse. I might just be reading into it too much. You asked about the line breaks, I think (and I'm not a poet so don't mind me) that breaking should happen at punctuation or in the middle of a sentence. Putting the "but" at the end of the third line makes it strange for me to read because I'm reading it as "And for a moment I can't breathe. But.........He doesn't know". That's just the way my brain works.

He’s snoring as I pick up the knife
And smile at my once good friend
Who knew how to crawl under my skin.
I curl it into Loneliness’ spidery fingers
And place it where his heart would be.
They won’t bother me anymore, I think,
Because I’m in a much better place now.

I keep forgetting your talking about Loneliness personified. I think that's wonderful because it's drawing me in and making me connect with other things I already know about loneliness in general.
But the fourth and fifth lines are confusing me. Are you saying that she takes the knife, puts it in Loneliness's hand and stabs it? Like getting rid of the loneliness? That's how I perceived it but I'm not sure because saying "place it where his heart would be" doesn't tell me that she's killing it or just setting it down there. And saying they, are you talking about the knife and loneliness? I think if you are saying that that you should stick with the loneliness because that is what you have focused on the rest of the poem. Throwing in the knife toward the end made me wonder and made me want it to keep going to explain it.


Like I said, Splodey, I'm not a poet and I don't really know how to read poetry. This is just how I read it(: I hope this helps because it was a beautiful image, like the other things you write. Your language was simple but it was visual and thought-provoking. Something that most people can't do.

~peanut~

Hey there, Splodester! So, Twin and peanut covered plenty in their reviews but I figured I would pick a bit at line breaks for you! Don’t worry, there weren’t many.

I’ve been to worse places than this, I think,

Okay, this isn’t actually a pick at line breaks but I was a little confused right off the bat with this because it’s an “I think” statement much like an “I said” sort of statement. It would have been nice to have seen something even as simple as single apostrophes.

I have slept with Loneliness before
Curled up close against my hipbone,

‘Before’ makes this line break felt weird to me. Though that might just be me. For me, this is mostly because if I read it as if it was just a phrase, then ‘before’ just gets clumsy.

And for a moment I can't breathe. But

I don’t really mind that you’ve left ‘but’ hanging on the end of this line. But I would liked to have seen something like a hyphen after it just to make me pause again. A very dramatic – pause.

They won’t bother me anymore, I think,

What I said in the first nitpick up there applies here. But I figured I would point it out again.


Otherwise, Splodester, this poem was much awesome. You definitely did a great job personifying loneliness and you did it in a very clever way. I really can’t put this poem down negatively in any way. And as far as the line break business goes, there really wasn’t much wrong with it at all so congrats!
If you have any questions, you know how to find me.

~lilymoore

Thank you so much everyone for the reviews. =]

Hi Pen!

So, I thought that you did a very good job with this poem. It has a lot of strong emotion ringing throughout it, and I can tell that you thought a lot about what this poem means to you. You expressed the meaning and themes of the poem well; your imagery is good and you definitely have a strong vocabulary. I still think that you can do some work with this and make it even better.

What bothers me most of all, however, is that your poem is clunky; it doesn't really have a solid flow to it, and feels more like prose put into stanzas. I struggle with this in my own poetry too, but I just thought I would point it out because it discourages me from reading an otherwise good poem. Take a look at your first two lines:

"I’ve been to worse places than this, I think,
As I wake up with a knife in my bed"

Now, put that all into one line, and you have,

"I’ve been to worse places than this, I think, as I wake up with a knife in my bed"

There's not really a strong difference between the two. Try to read the poem out loud to yourself as you read it and see if there is any sense of rhythm.

That's really the only issue I had with the piece -- you do a very good job otherwise! Hope this helps you, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

~ Elinor

Expo =) I didn't read the comments above, so if I repeat something...
What I've always liked about your poetry is that you have such an original way of expressing yourself, you use such unique images. And this piece was no disappointment there. =)

As for line breaks. I think you were right to... not feel right... about them. If you look at the first word of every line, they're all rather insignificant words (as, like, after, and, to, who, they, because). They're necessary, but they're not the important words, the striking words. They're connecting words, because each line is a different phrase, and it can make the lines seem disjointed, like taking a breath between each one.

"His whiskey stench hits between my eyes [pause]
Like every punch he’s thrown in his stupor; [pause]
And for a moment I can't breathe. But [Here it continues flowing into the next line, at least better than the others]
He doesn’t know that I’ve learned how [pause]
To see through lies and empty promises."

I'm not sure what to suggest as far as adjusting the line breaks. I know it's typically been my style to sort of... ramble, in a way. As in, I write on one line until think it's long enough and whatever word happens to be next goes onto the next line. I'll leave it to your judgment whether you think that's right for this poem or not.



Just a few other small mentions:
"His whiskey stench hits between my eyes
Like every punch he’s thrown in his stupor;" I don't like the word "like" here. Maybe it has to do with the line breaks again, because having it as the first word there draws a lot of attention to it. It just isn't a strong word for such a strong image.

You use the phrase "I think" twice. I don't know whether or not it was intentional, but it feels unnecessary, in both places.

"I have slept with Loneliness before
Curled up close against my hipbone,
One lazy arm slung around my neck"
I love. These lines. Especially the 3rd one.

At first I thought I didn't understand the last few lines, but on looking at it again more closely, I think I understand? The speaker puts the knife into the hand of loneliness, and puts that hand over their "heart"?
The middle two stanzas are definitely the best. As much as I like the way you compared the knife to a teddy bear (really, really liked it), I have to admit I don't really understand the purpose of the knife.



Finally, the ending. It's not as strong as I'd like to see, as I know you can do. The line about worse places was good at the beginning, to help us into the poem, to introduce us to it. But I didn't feel any emotion at the end. I feel like it came just a little too quickly, first of all. We didn't have quite enough time to get there because were only just introduced to loneliness, and then they are overcoming it. But we don't see how, we don't know what allowed them to get to the point where they can leave loneliness behind.
"They won’t bother me anymore, I think,
Because I’m in a much better place now."
-'They' being the knife and loneliness? Or...
-"Much" is just clutter.
-What better place? I've seen you use such beautiful images. This line is lazy I can tell you wanted to tie it into the beginning, to sort of bring it full circle, but you don't really need to. The word place is so generic, and I know you could bring it to life, could make us feel the peace, or the unadulterated joy, or just the contentment, they can now have. I'd love to see you do that, because I know you can. =)

This has been my first review in a long...long...time. So I sincerely hope that it helped. I'm out of practice

I’ve been to worse places than this, I think,
As I wake up with a knife in my bed
Like a child wakes up with a teddy bear.

I have slept with Loneliness before
Curled up close against my hipbone,
One lazy arm slung around my neck
After I’ve tired him out with arguments
And he’s thrown his accusations at me.

His whiskey stench hits between my eyes
Like every punch he’s thrown in his stupor;
And for a moment I can't breathe. But
He doesn’t know that I’ve learned how
To see through lies and empty promises.

He’s snoring as I pick up the knife
And smile at my once good friend
Who knew how to crawl under my skin.
I curl it into Loneliness’ spidery fingers
And place it where his heart would be.
They won’t bother me anymore, I think,
Because I’m in a much better place now.



This paints a picture bigger and better than life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's epic! I mean... I'm literaly... Ummmm... speechless! It was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

1: I think some of the punctuation was wrong so you may have to fix that, but over all, this was terrific!
Don't ever stop writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!