Young Writers Society

Hello, hello, mimimac!

When I first started reading this poem, I was overcome with the desire to sing it aloud to some random, chill rhythm, and so I did.

That's how I found the places that I didn't think fit as well with the tone and essential calmness and beauty that you started the poem with.

The first was this line:

Using the colours of your explorer’s eyes,

In just that phrase "explorer's eyes". I feel like it could mean something, but when I'm looking for concrete images to pair with "colors", I don't get any implied colors from "explorer's" eyes and so I'm left wobbling in the wind. Is there some other way you might describe these eyes? Where does the explorer explore? Mountains and pale eyes? Jungles and green eyes?

Each carrying delicate china promises

I think the "delicate" here is too redundant, because we see "china" and in the next we see "shatter", so we know it's delicate. You might want to change the word china to something like porcelain, maybe, to avoid the accidental reading of "China" the country!

That I had used to hide myself from mountain ranger hands

I'd take out the "had". I know you're trying to get a sense of a deeper past, but I feel like just expressing the past tense is enough and makes the rhythm less clunky.

I also think it would be good for you to take out explorer eyes because you use the word "explorer" much more fittingly down here in a later line!

OH NO! The poem is starting to fall to pieces down here. Let's take each crack one by one.

or beneath a treasure trove bra,

I don't think "treasure trove" works to describe the bra here. Maybe bringing another concrete description would work better? Something about the clasp or the style of the bra to reveal more about this speaker's personality along with the "loosely" fitting jeans of the next line?

But rather hidden inside loosely fitted jeans

And sarcastic jokes and a fear of commitment

I think the "and"s make this section too clunky. It would work better with commas, keep us moving from one to the next more easily: "fitted jeans, sarcastic jokes, a fear of commitment".

Towards strangers that could leave as easily as a lost eyelash

misplaced on an innocent wind of, ”I love you.”

The attempt at hearkening back to a previous image is generally good, but suddenly this poem got all sappy where before it was chill, frank, and plain. Fancy words like "misplaced" and the saccharine description of "innocent wind" all wrapped up with the ever-too-sweet-or-bland "I love you" make this section void of emotion for me.

And from there to the end I feel like you're trying to hard to be thankful, and it doesn't work for me because the beginning of the poem signified just acceptance -- honest and equal acceptance, where suddenly I have to be THANKFUL to this person for coming into my space. Maybe it's just me disliking the message. Maybe I misread the first part. Did you feel the message changing as you continued to write? Do you see that in your own writing? What do you want to communicate? What do you want to do about it?

I hope these thoughts and comments will be helpful to you as you edit, write, and continue to learn!

PM me or reply to this review if you have any questions.
Good luck and keep writing!

Hannah