Opportunities

Hello! Alright so I like the theme you're working with here, but the flow is stiff and the emotions aren't coming through. I'll try to point out what I think the issues are and hopefully I'll get you one step closer to having an awesome poem

Line-By-Line

Let's face it girl
we've lost it.
It's been three years since we've talked...
I've been clinging,
I've been hoping,
But you...
you've just merely
chugged along.

The voice isn't coming through and there's too much 'I' going on, which immediately separates your reader from the speaker. He's not purposefully selfish enough for us to mark him as a villain and despise him, but he's too much me, me, me for us to connect with him. Your opening line is also drab and not grabbing, while line three is far more hook-worthy so I'd probably move things around. Here's a quick example of how a change in tone could make this more effective:

Three years since we've talked;
I found your likeness in a magazine
and imagined kissing lips that were not yours.
Let's face it girl, I think we've lost it:
three years of clinging to a roadmap
you never made.

I've painted pictures
using written words, <<< Maybe try 'with the written word'
of the life that we could lead. <<<You're very vague in your descriptions. This guy has had three years to think about the life they could have lived, so what kind of life was that? A picket-fence life? An Arabian dream? Culture references are your friend here! What has shaped this fantasy he has imagined for them?
You've lived
the life that you've been handed,
suspended by no leash. <<< I understand what you're saying here, that she hasn't had these thoughts plaguing her, but I don't like the image of the leash. It doesn't fit. Chain might be better, or maybe play with the sensation of being on pause, of being stuck walking the wrong way on an escalator. That kind of suspension of life because he's always looking back over his shoulder. That's the image you want to give us.

Imagery and Specifics

I'm going to cut the line by line short as I'm not doing all the work for you and what I've covered in those two stanzas pretty much applies to the whole poem, but let's go into more detail.

Your imagery is too vague. You're not giving us enough hints of who this persona is, how much of the feelings he has are real or once existed and what his daily life is like. Obviously that's a lot to cover in a poem, but you need to give your reader some context so they know where your persona is coming from.

You also need to give us more solid imagery. At the moment there are a lot of abstract phrases, like 'life's roads of opportunity' and the reader can't tie a solid image to these. And if you look at that final stanza, the most concrete image you have is the path and the road, so what is your reader supposed to grab hold of? Poetry needs to stimulate the brain both visually and audibly - you need to be able to see, hear and feel the poem.

I hope that's given you a few ideas and if you've got questions, go ahead and ask!

Good Luck!

Heather xxx