Young Writers Society

I buy each breath I take.

I buy it with shed skin, footsteps,
the wheeze and gasp of my lungs
trying to barter with my heart,
prices high as a blood bank.

I buy them at night,
when I'm sleeping, and carry them
in paper bags like liquor.

I buy them and save them, when I can, and then hold my breath
like my lungs are leather pouches in raw
desert air, and I curl up the paper bags
hoping they don't escape. I engrave them
into rings, like wedding dates and names and
reasons to celebrate each year. Champagne.
They taste like that, alcoholic, bubbly, almost,
like smog when I spit them back out.

It's then that I wonder if my body is just a machine:
if all the veins and arteries that they tell me are red
are actually oiled and slick and chemicaled as a car--
if the smoke that they say is corroding the sky way up there
where we can't see, is just us exhaling,
exhaling,
drinking in the engravings that I scratched out with a fingernail
and I wonder if maybe if I could flip a switch to turn myself off for a while,
I would.

And I wonder if someone would flip it back.

Hey Percy! I would like to review this. Here we go.

First of all your diction. It was simple and understandable which makes it easy to read thereby giving a flow to the poem. Your imagery was also good because your word choices were unique and this finally makes your voice powerful in this piece. The voice was raw and strong with a deep touch of candor in it. It allows us as readers to take what you feel seriously. Although the poem was good, there are some elements that made the poem confusing to me. One: the use of or rather the lack of capital letters in the piece. In my opinion, I believe the start of a new line or metre should begin with a capital letter. But I might be wrong. Anyways, this was a beautiful piece and your voice is unique. Good luck!

Hi Persy

I love this poem. Love love love it. Especially the last stanza and very last line, which are both very strong. The best part is that most of it just flows and feels totally effortless...which then makes it super apparent when one word doesn't fit and doesn't work with the rest.

I buy it with shed skin, footsteps

Being very nitpickity here but I think it would sound better if it were 'I buy them' like it is in the next stanza. As it is it just sounds...wrong, I guess, and especially when there are another two lines that say 'I buy them'. The rest of this stanza is lovely!

when I'm sleeping, and carry them

For some reason I really don't like 'when I'm sleeping'. I dunno why, it just seems too mundane compared to the next line. I'd rather have more of the liquor simile which is so interesting, by the way, especially the implied comparison to alcoholism (I think?) and I think the sleeping part lets it down and yeah.

and then hold my breath
like my lungs are leather pouches in raw
desert air,

This is wonderful. I think it might be stronger if it were 'and my lungs', but maybe that's just me.

They taste like that, alcoholic, bubbly, almost,

I am a firm believer that 'that' is a word that does not belong in poetry. It takes up too much room and means hardly anything. Also, I think you must have a better way of saying 'alcoholic'.

like smog when I spit them back out

This is my favourite part of the entire poem.

if the smoke that they say is corroding the sky way up there
where we can't see, is just us exhaling,

Again - lovely - but the first line feels very clunky and hard to read. Even 'if the smoke they say is corroding...' or maybe put the line break somewhere else, it would be much better!

and I wonder if maybe if I could flip a switch to turn myself off for a while,
I would.

And I wonder if someone would flip it back.

adfahgjfkal. Gorgeous.

I hope this helped/made sense in some way, as I said many times I think this poem is really really nice and I can't wait to see more of your work, I think it just needs reading over once or twice and revising a little bit but all in all really well done. If you wanted you could even elaborate on the connection between breathing and alcohol and the addictive-ness of life, possibly especially to someone who's ill or disabled, because I sort of thought that was where you were going and then you didn't really in the last stanza. But I loved the last stanza as well, it was probably the strongest, and I think I'm getting way ahead of myself.
Anyway. Cough.

Carrie