Wilted and Lonely Things

A poem I wrote last winter...
I haven't looked at it in a while so I needs some work...
A poem about poor self esteem and body image:




Rare flowers and warm scarves
became wilted and lonely things,

While goals morphed into eggshells and apple cores

As the shards of our eyes skewed once more
and hard earned porcelain frames melted away,

We learned there is no mannequin we can slip into,
no cookie cutter that can shape us

So the whispering needles stab us when we shut our eyes,
when we blink, when we sleep.

But we keep them close,
Pulling them deeper into our skin

so we don't have to be

alone.

Hi,

This is lovely. The first couplet instantly drew me in and the poem flows well as a whole. I love the isolation of "alone" on the final line. I especially enjoyed:

"We learned there is no mannequin we can fit into,
no cookie cutter than can shape us."

"Tings" should be "things" and I'd change "fit" to "slip" to make it more subtle.

A pleasure.
Jas

Hi there, Talkingbird!

I think this was quite a nice piece to read! I especially liked your metaphors of "ordinary" things like scarves and cookie-cutters. I also liked "hard earned porcelain frames".

So the dark, whispering needles stab us when we shut our eyes,
when we blink, when we sleep.

This might be more efficient if you took away the "dark", especially when sleeping and shutting your eyes is usually associated with dark, so it's sort of implied already.

This was also a very nice length! I never have much patience to read super long poems.

Let me know if you have any questions!


Demeter
x

this is my favorite poem of yours, I call it, hahaha. It speaks so much to those with poor self esteem!!! this could be a poem that girls read to themselves. Its beautiful, the imagery is like snow. Crystal clear and very, very beautiful, like a diamond. Good job writing this!!!!

Hello talkingbird,

Well here I am again, I'm back to give you another review! I can honestly say that I liked this much, much better than the other poem I reviewed, this was much more flowing and whole and overall it had better language and there was a passionate meaning behind this whole thing. I think that this was really neat and quite a marvelous poem overall. now for my few nit picks and chunks of advice!

While goals morphed into eggshells and apple cores

I was confused as to why exactly there was no punctuation at the end of this particular line. Pretty much every other line in this poem had some sort of punctuation at the end of the line to symbolize that that part was over except this and I think you did need just a simple full stop to break up the poem a bit more. In the future be sure to scan over your writing and look for flaws like these before you press the big 'submit' button.

I also think you need to make this a bit longer, it was short and beautiful but it was so short that it almost felt empty and I think had it had a longer length this problem may not have occurred. Not so long that it bored people, but just a little bit to make it more full and interesting to the reader. But like Demeter said, a lot of people don't have patience to read long poems but people also don't have patience to review short poems so it works both ways.

Another thing, this couplet here was quite confusing to me, it might just be me but it didn't sound right and you might consider rephrasing the lot or jumbling some of the words around do it fits better with the style of the poem.

So the whispering needles stab us when we shut our eyes,
when we blink, when we sleep.

it was the part about sleeping and being awake and shutting our eyes, I don't think they were in the right order.

Those were really the only flaws I could find with this, it was really quite a good decent poem that was both interesting and complex to read. My favorite thing bout this was that language and imagery and I would like to see you expand on what you have here. Overall you have a good poem here, well done!

From DreamingForever

Naooow, This is SUCH A beautiful poem. You use simple but powerful imagery and symbolism and same time you deliver a very improtant message. This is one of those poem that really manage to speak up and say something important and they way you wrote it gave it a very confident voice even though it's about insecurity and lack of confidence. It flowed well, the rythm was okay and you used punctation... allthough I feel like you could need a few more dots and commas to make it complete.

This stanza was the only one when the rythm got a little cut off but it's still my favorite one!

"So the whispering needles stab us when we shut our eyes,
when we blink, when we sleep." - My suggestion is that you write it like this instead;

"So the whispering needles stab us when we;
shut our eyes, when we blink, when we sleep." But that's just a suggestion

Overall this was really, truly amazing! I give 4/5 icky, sticky spiders!

Good Luck & Keep Writing

// Demoness

Thanks! Yeah, i was a little worried about the rhyme even as I wrote it, but i couldn't really find a way around and htat one line was kind of a specific description of something... and yeah, I've been working on the whispering needles part for a while, so thanks for your feedback!

All comments are in blue and edits are in red.

Rare flowers and warm scarves
become wilted (I think if you take out the word and it would make more sense) lonely things,

While goals are morphed into eggshells and apple cores

As the shards of our eyes are skewed once more
and hard earned porcelain frames melted away,

We learned there is no mannequin we can slip into,
no cookie cutter that can shape us This stanza is my favorite I liked how the imagery is really strong!

So the whispering needles stab us (I took out when but added as) as we shut our eyes,
when we blink, when we sleep. Not sure about this line it's confusing, maybe try to describe it more?

But we keep them close,
Pulling them deeper into our skin

so we don't have to be

alone.

Overall I liked this poem it flowed well and had great imagery, the only thing I think you need to work on is getting your message across more in order for the readers to feel that they can actually take something from this piece. That was the only main problem that I saw, so thanks for posting I enjoyed reading this!
Peace,
Snickerdooly