The fading silhouette stares through my window.
Silently judging, mocking
My feeble attempt at life.
.
The silhouette will seem forever fading
As a constant reminder of how I failed you
And let you slip between my clumsy fingers.
.
A hooded cloak, a pair of bright blue eyes
Burns deep within my withered soul
And brings even my darkest secrets to the surface.
.
You may as well just kill me,
String me up for the world to see
Or plunge a silent knife into my back.
It won’t matter.
You’ve already destroyed my heart.
.
Why do I still try?
Why do I waste my time
Opening up to you about things I shouldn’t?
.
I don’t still love you
But you mean the world to me.
Maybe the silhouette isn’t faded, but flawed.
It is human, after all.
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Canary word: Present
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hi there! I'm here to rescue you from the Green Room!
This is my honest opinion. It's filled with good intentions.
What is the reason we see dark? Because of the light. Here, you show us only darkness-- I can understand that, but what is the goal? Certainly not to become one with the darkness, but come out of it a bit. And at the end, we find this is true-- the narrator comes to the conclusion that the silhouette is flawed.
We don't see a single glimpse of light; we see only self-pity and how the narrator feels. Sometimes poems like that are okay, but they are very difficult to do. We don't see this other person at all, only the narrator saying things like "I failed you" and "You’ve already destroyed my heart." Self pity does not a poem make.
Self pity makes a poem sound cliche and immature. Sadness is something different. Sadness illustrates the reason, rather than the emotion.
Here's my advice for future poetry. Don't make it about the narrator's feelings, but the events leading up to the feelings. Not only does that make us sympathize with the character, but it makes the emotions seem stronger simply because we know why this character is feeling these emotions. Right now, your meaning is lost in a silhouette, but it could be as clear as a koi pond, and much more painful. If the meaning is lost, the pain is duller because the reason for the pain is the incident.
I hope that this didn't sound too harsh, and that it proves useful to you. Have a nice day, and keep on writing!
Knight Dragon, here to review!
Technical:
The first thing I picked up on when I started reading this poem was the fact that you called the silhouette "faded" in the first line, despite both the title being "fading" and the first line of the next stanza: "The silhouette will seem forever fading." All of those seem to imply a continual process of fading, but by saying "faded," you're implying that it's faded as far as it will go, that all the fading's done. So I'd recommend changing "faded" to "fading."
The rhythm felt a bit off there. The "beautiful" felt a bit extraneous, like it's something the reader would automatically assume from the tone of the poem.
The poem would flow better if you had a comma instead of a period after that first line. A comma at the end of the second line would be a stylistic decision.
Hope this helps!
Ah, i didn't spot the fading thing, small typo
i'll edit accordingly, thanks for the advice! 