A/N - This is from a guy's prospective, which I've never really done much.
--
you always seemed to walk with a purpose.
the strawberry scent of your hair,
the way it bounced and shimmered,
the devilish smile at the tips of your full lips.
-
pieces of you,
they are stuck in my mirror,
i can still smell your perfume,
clinging to the sheets,
where you used to lay.
-
the ghost of your touch,
it's pressure on my collarbone.
the doctor prescribed madness,
i take it like a drug.
-
the tongue of your whisper,
it's still a bitter taste in my mouth.
you're opening my throat,
coming out in a scream.
-
I didn't realize when you died,
that Hell would be inside me.
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140,667 Literary Works • 673,585 Reviews
This is pretty deep.
But it is inspiring.
Life is good but it is also Bad.
In the end even the bad will have some good.
Timmy here
I don't know what I can add to the two poetry genius' reviews below me, but I will see what I can do. :3 Eventually, I may grow to be good at reviewing poetry. I suppose you and I will learn together - you how to write it, and I how to review it. Sounds good? You have a better start than I do. xD
Now I am not sure if this qualifies as a nitpick because I am not sure if I am a fan of it or not yet, but this poem seems very abrupt. Scatterbrained in some parts, even. Like you begin an idea and then toss it aside for the next, leaving the notebook of that idea half-empty. I think the one I feel that the most about is pieces of you, they are stuck on my mirror. It is such an abstract and unique idea, even for poetry, that it caught me for a second. I loved it, I truly did. But you left it untouched. I think you should have taken this short bit, this beginning of an emotion and action, and pulled it apart. You should have told us how and why pieces of them are stuck in the mirror. Like I said, when I read through that part, I simply don't understand. Because it has some metaphoric meaning to it, since taking that part literally would just seem strange and morbid, but I can't put my finger on it. I think adding to that would help this piece quite a bit. You have originality, though. I will definitely give you that. :3
I am not a big fan of this type of description. To describe something in poetry, I have always seen that it works better if the person/thing described is moving. See it in action, you know? Which is why the imagery is so amazing in the fourth stanza. You're giving it to us in a mixed dosage of description and action - putting the two together for perfection. That was your best stanza, because it really gave me an image - and not a stereotypical method of doing so. The line above seemed bland, and the only reason it is that way is how you worded it. The fourth stanza is lean on adjectives, heavy on emotion and powerful nouns. As is the third stanza. I think you could look at that style (since that is the only reference of style I have, and I liked how you wrote it), and see if you could mirror that more in the lines like that above. Just to get rid of the "normal" descriptions. It's not that they aren't good descriptions, but like the one above? I think it would fit more inside a novel than poetry. Write descriptions and emotion like you do in the latter part of this poem, and your readers will find themselves crying.
One more thing I think you could have done better in this is the flow between lines. When I read them, your piece had a staccato-ey feeling to it. Each line was a piece of its own, and the next was a jerk away. They seemed to individual, finding it difficult to slide into the next line. It's partly due to your punctuation (I know punctuation is the writer's choice - but it still matters). When I expect a period, I get a comma. And that jerked me around a bit. And the weird thing is, the way you worded many of the beginnings of the following lines and such... The commas seemed more out of place then they should have been. Because so many lines began in an awkward spot if read right after the one before.
Putting those two together like a complete thought and sentence. The wording hinders the flow. Tweaking and adjusting those lines would do the piece good, I think. And would add a new flow to your poem.
I could pull out sections of this poem and proclaim it to the heavens forever, but I think I will just settle with repeating them to myself. The words you have to say are beautiful, and how you present them is unique and mesmerizing in almost every way you do. But how you present them is the ultimate test. You did well on this one, but I know you can do better as you go along.
Keep writing poetry. You're doing wonderful. <3
~Darth Timmyjake
I think I see more potential here than I should. It's not necessarily even potential within the poem, but rather where your train of thought seems to be taking you.
Consider this a gateway exercise. It's not in a good place, but it's on its way. With that in mind, take all of my criticism with a grain of salt.
Your flow is crippled and there is nothing to blame but your execution of techniques that don't play well together. You fragment where it's unnecessary, place odd grammar in seemingly without a purpose, and bring focus to unimportant lines. So let's look together.
Right off the cuff, we get the full blast that the you in the poem is no longer in the life of the narrator. With this in mind, your ending is essentially already with us. That's important if you were going for a rug-jerk ending. I'm not a fan of the wording of this stanza because it's redundant to the point of creating an unnecessary opening line--and that's bad. Your opening line should be precious. For this malady, I want to take the last line of this stanza and make it the first.
With the way stanza two follows up, I'd find a way to include 'pieces of you' without just leaving it there to rust in the pool. So assign an action to the pieces of you. Personify them. And then pull us into the next stanza with
I don't particularly have an issue with the color scheme, but I definitely want substance that I'm not getting. Instead, I'm getting dose after dose of fragmented imagery about this girl that ultimately does nothing to the reader. This. Girl. Needs. To. Haunt. Me. But she can't because there's no reason for her to. Okay, she died. Okay, this guy is worse off because of it. But what about it should stick with me? Give me a reason to mourn her, or else the point of your poem is moot.
In stanza three, your flow reaches its worst point when you lash between the ice of the girl's touch and a random doctor prescribing madness. This isn't a bad image, but it certainly doesn't belong. You can fix this by giving it some context. Without any context, it's worthless to me.
So stanza four is your sweet spot. It has a fluid evolution of imagery that actually accomplishes a feeling resonating with your reader. That said, it doesn't flow well enough, and needs more TLC.
Finally, take Sizzle's advice about your final lines. Her remedy works well for your particular plight of fragmentation.
Hope this helps,
Lumi
You should write from a male perspective more often.
I would stop with the "~"'s. They're not needed, they interrupt it, they're just decoration that makes your poem look tacky. "You always seemed to walk with a purpose" doesn't fit the rest of the poem. It's just stuck there. I like the line itself, but it doesn't fit. What are stuck to your mirror? I realize it's pieces, but because you've divided each stanza with a "~" it makes my brain think "oh it's time for a new idea" and when it's a continuation, my brain goes "humph." The cream and black are too common for me. Think of some better adjectives and colors to describe what you're going for. Which I'm not really sure. Why are the pillows and walls important? Why not the floor (where your underwear fell is a common metaphor but) or the bedpost or the sheets? Pillows and walls have nothing to do with each other and the colors are such opposites that it's like 'wait what'.
Icy touches are too cliche. Try fiery, smoky, hot. Try the opposite. The next line about the doctor prescribing madness, now that's a good line. Keep it.
The next stanza just needs deleted all together. It's cliche and doesn't really do anything for the poem. "I didn't realize that when you died hell was inside of me"
when you put it on one line, do you see how it doesn't make sense? You need some more words or something.
"I didn't realize when you died
that Hell would be inside me"
Something like that ^^ makes a lot more sense. And it's just rearranging the words. Plus, it flows better.
Anyway, write from a male perspective more often. I personally enjoy it in my poetry, even if in my prose it doesn't really work for me.
Sparkles
Okay. So I made some changes, according to your edits. Tell me if I can do anything else
Also - I had to put "~" because YWS won't let me separate the stanzas. I changed it to "-" so it's a little more clean.
Here, check out How to format your poetry on YWS and it'll tell you how.