Your Dreams Kept me Awake

You're spilling out onto the covers, moon beams
tracing the contours of your body,
like an artist without aim.

You are not mine, but tonight
I will resist the sadistic urge to follow
the last breaths of moonlight.
I will remember the tortured pages of
a diary I stole, mere hours
before those bruised lips confided
that I was beautiful, too.

Sleep sweetly, for I fear
the dreams that have kept you awake.

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Since I have an apparent inability to convey this through my poem, here's what was in my head.

Spoiler

This was about two people who aren't a couple(you are not mine) but have slept together, the speaker is up while the other sleeps. The person who is awake wants to leave before the other gets up (sadistic urge, last breaths of moonlight) because he/she considers it casual sex but knows that this will hurt the person sleeping so he/she doesn't. He/she stole the diary of the person sleeping and sees that this person is actually really messed up/depressed (tortured pages, diary i stole). They obviously consider each other attractive and there's a lot of passion between the two (bruised lips, i was beautiful, too). The speaker is afraid of the demons the person sleeping has and doesn't want to have to confront them (last line).

WOW, this was just plain fantastic. I can really feel the pain in this poem. The only thing is maybe you may want to elaborate on a few lines. But, I know that's hard with poetry.

Overall, great job!

Hey kat! Dogs here for your review today! I really liked this piece, it packed full of strong emotion and strong imagery. I also really like the length of this poem. This is a short poem and you have managed to make your short poem sound good, get the point across, while at the same time using strong imaginative words which is not an easy task at all, so props to you on that one lol! My favorite part is all of your similes you use. SIMILE NOT SMILE! thats a common mistake my reader makes when they read my review lol. Often leads to some confusion. The only critizism of this piece i have is that at some times it gets a little difficult to follow and I kind of get lost wondering what is happening which is the challenge you face in such a short poem. Don't get me wrong this piece is fantastic, but for next time you should make your poem a little clearer. Keep up the good work!!!!



TuckEr EllsworTh

I like this a lot, the imagery is beautiful and the words are just articulated really well. I see a lot of works on the site that are intentionally short but then fail to really go anywhere or have emotional impact, so I was really surprised that this one was different. Very unique. I love it.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver

Like the posters above, I can feel the emotion in this piece. It's short, but still gives a connection with the reader- that's some real skill there.
I love, LOVE the ending. It really closes the piece well. The poem was also a very smooth read, well done.
There's really nothing bad I can say about this. The reader could always use more information, but this was well done enough that it works fine.
Thanks for requesting!
-Starry

KatTrain,

I'll be honest, dreams and moonlight - I've seen it all before, so the images here do not entice me as much as it would have. That being said, of all the imagery, I really love the opening line.

You're spilling out onto the covers, moon beams
tracing the contours of your body,
like an artist without aim.

I would move "moon beams" to the second line - I don't see how breaking it at "beams" adds anything to the flow/structure, if anything, its inhibiting it. I like your sounds here. Spilling, beams, contours - artist without aim - very nice.

I will remember the tortured pages of
a diary I stole, mere hours
before those bruised lips confided
that I was beautiful, too.

Haha. That's some really seductive stuff you have here. Love it. I would rethink "tortured", I feel as though there are a number of possibilities of directions you could have taken and while I like the emotions, hardship, and terror that it describes, I feel as though -maybe- it's forced?

"Tortured pages" - I get this image of someone jabbing at their notebook, poking holes into it. Is this what you want to say? If that's what you want to say, then it's fine. But if there's more here you want to say, then experiment some with word-choice.

Sleep sweetly, for I fear
the dreams that have kept you awake.

I like the finality of the lines for a conclusion, but the words and the meaning itself is what I'm unsure of. Dreams keeping me awake seems kind of contradictory, I suppose. But when I compare it with your title, there's an immediate clashing of ideas/sentiments, because here- it is the one who is sleeping who is awake (which is confusing), and in your title- it is the speaker who is awake. Which seems to be consistent with the overall poem itself until this point.

Other than these things, I can't really find anything else to criticize. It is a good poem, but I think what keeps it from being a great poem is just the lack of originality, I suppose. I mean - the voice itself is great. The strength of this piece is the voice and the line about the bruised lips, thats where it gets really interesting, but it stops before elaborating or going further with that train of thought. The voice does what it should do, and the execution, the structure, nothing particularly worth nitpicking at -

Sometimes a poem has this spice, and it just captivates my imagination. The spice can be anything. Whether it's a poem's imagery, or a poem's perceptiveness, or whether it's a particular perspective or angle that I have never seen before. That's what this poem is lacking here, spice.

The main images here are of moonlight, diary pages, moon/sleep/dreams. The images are mentioned, but they are never elaborated on, so the images here seem stale. The perception here seems to be of a broken couple, or an abusive relationship, but that's as far as my understanding gets. Nothing here that can really further my experience of this subject. It's written in the perspective of the abuser, it seems. I wonder if it would be more interesting if it were written in the perspective of the sheets or the bed.

I hope this helps.

- as always, Audy

Hello, Kat! I'm Rose, and I'll be reviewing this piece today!

First off, I love this piece. You managed to fit quite a bit of imagery into it, and some of the details you used were absolutely brilliant. However, I wasn't as impressed with certain other parts of it.

You're spilling out onto the covers, moon beams
tracing the contours of your body,
like an artist without aim.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the first line. It just doesn't seem fresh to me. I don't know if it's the detail about the moonbeams or what, but I'm just not impressed by it. It doesn't seem as special as the rest of the poem.

The second line is good, but my favorite is the third line. Describing the light as an aimless artist was absolutely wonderful. I would have never thought of doing it, but it made sense when I read it. I mean, light is beautiful, but it's crazy and spontaneous and unpredictable. Very nice work there.

I will remember the tortured pages of
a diary I stole, mere hours
before those bruised lips confided
that I was beautiful, too.

This is probably my favorite part. I completely understand your sentiments when you wrote this, especially the part about the 'tortured pages'; after having written many entries in spiral notebooks about my feelings, I can understand how you would describe them that way. In the second line, I love how you put in the detail about the 'stolen diary'; it makes me wonder who you stole it from and what was inside.

All in all, awesome piece! Always keep writing!

-Rose

Hey, Kat!

There's not much I can lay out for you here since the others have already given you all you need to improve. And this isn't a review It's just something of a way to say that you are a great poet and that you could maybe put in a little bit of polishing here and there for the rough bits.

The piece in its entirety was really nice and the subtlety in the message is good. I feel that since it's like that, I can really feel with the anguish that the persona is feeling as well. That was a nice touch. And yes, I didn't quite fully understand the entire concept until I read the spoiler, lol. Maybe all you needed to have done was added more description towards the situation at hand. But even in keeping it the way it is would be nice as well. It would keep the reader in a eerie yet mystified as to what in the world is going on and why the persona is the way he/she is.

This is great stuff and you're one poetess to watch out for. Keep the ink flowing! I'm looking forward to reading more from you!

Murtuza