Through the Smog

Hi! I really enjoyed reading this. I sometimes struggle with separating stanzas to make my writing flow more and I honestly feel like I can learn from this because your formatting is really good. One of my favorite lines is "Through a street filled with beating hearts". It sounds so sinister while it could just describe any busy street. It makes you want to think it's describing some sad dystopian world, but you are reminded that it could be our world from this person's perspective. I notice that some of your lines rhyme but just a few here and there. It sounds good without being out of place, but I am curious if you were placing those rhymed lines purposefully in those sections or that's just how it turned out. Great either way. Very cool vibes, nice work!

Hits like adrenaline depression.

Hey Lunar <3 always interested in a good poem and you placed this one in the "spiritual" genre, so I had to give it a read! Here's a quick review for you, please let me know if you wanted feedback on something that I didn't respond to and I'll try to answer back.

So this poem for me was a really intriguing one to consider, at first I considered the poem to b a little bit of an "eco-poem" or one that discusses ecological realities - like the onset of pollution and the affects it has on human, but then I was wondering if perhaps you meant "smog" more metaphorically like in line three where you refer to a "feeling of mortality" and if maybe the "smog" is just this feeling of death that the speaker is struggling with - the last two stanzas really brought this together. I interpreted this poem in two ways:

1) the narrator is literally struggling to breathe - maybe because of pollutive realities in present or in the future, and the poem is a warning against continued use of pollutants - which may also be a metaphor for other societal ills or even covid or perhaps even depression - like the last stanza says, something that "clings to each living person"

2) my alternative interpretation was that the poem is depicting a metaphorical smog - or just a feeling of pending death. Maybe the narrator is just very death conscious (again because of covid, I think we all can relate to that a little bit!) maybe in a way they are even longing for death - as the last stanza has them wondering when they'll finally find a heavenly/afterlife peace. This is a sad interpretation, but I think a lot of people can relate to this dual dread and hopefullness with death, especially when considered from a religious lens or when thinking about all the difficulties people struggle with.

I think the poem could be a bit more direct in what it is about from the beginning, since at the end you're pretty concrete with it being about "smog" and at the end it goes a bit more "out-there / spiritual" and I think you could blend the two a bit more. The poem didn't seem particularly focused to me, almost like it was a random list of observations instead of a story or an organized telling. And I think it'd be useful maybe to think about exactly what you want the reader to get out of the poem, and then maybe take out the parts that don't get to that. ie. if the poem is about literal smog - then the last stanza might not be relevant. if the poem is about death - then what is the mind-wandering part about? making the poem a little more focused will give it's message more impact and help the reader latch on to what you're saying.

Now let's go through stanza by stanza with a few comments ~

I'm on the other side of the shattered glass,

Looking back on myself as I pass,

Through a street filled with beating hearts

And the feeling of mortality that echos in the silence.

Where there’s an absence of oxygen to fill my lacking lungs,

And the haze of fumes and smoke

Encompasses me to the point of suffocation.

And I let my mind wander to someplace else,

Where things are different,

As I construct a world that is truly my own

Through the swirling smog that surrounds each soul.

To I visualize the world as what it could be,

What it used to be,

But not what it is.

And I can't let the feeling go unrequited,

Of what will happen to this world,

Years from now when I'm no longer here.

To wheeze and cough with every breath,

To feel my lungs rattle with every step,

And the frail beating of my heart resonate through me

Like a symphony that will one day cease.

Will I then find peace from up above?

In being able to see the world through the smog,

That clings to each living person

As they dream of a different world,

I will no longer be part of.

Starting from here

"To wheeze and cough with every breath,

To feel my lungs rattle with every step,

And the frail beating of my heart resonate through me

Like a symphony that will one day cease."

Fear of death

I just love this part totally

"Will I then find peace from up above?

In being able to see the world through the smog,

That clings to each living person

As they dream of a different world,

I will no longer be part of."



...

Starting from here

"To wheeze and cough with every breath,

To feel my lungs rattle with every step,

And the frail beating of my heart resonate through me

Like a symphony that will one day cease."

Fear of death

I just love this part totally

"Will I then find peace from up above?

In being able to see the world through the smog,

That clings to each living person

As they dream of a different world,

I will no longer be part of."



...

Starting from here

"To wheeze and cough with every breath,

To feel my lungs rattle with every step,

And the frail beating of my heart resonate through me

Like a symphony that will one day cease."

Fear of death

I just love this part totally

"Will I then find peace from up above?

In being able to see the world through the smog,

That clings to each living person

As they dream of a different world,

I will no longer be part of."



...