Breathing Room

Hello. I recognise that this is old, but you will have to forgive me if you no longer want reviews on it. I'm still working my way through the outerlands of the 0/1 reviews and hoping to give help where I can and, just as importantly, to lower that number down so that we can reach a stage in YWS history where everything does (and has) receive(d) at least two reviews.

Specifics

1. I feel like there should be 'lamb' on the end of that second line, perhaps because there are references of forests or fields, or because that's the saying I am familiar with. Either way it feels like it ends short and that's a little disconcerting.

2. I want to see something a little more here! There's a nice gentle, tugging tone but it's almost too gentle and passive and I'm not seeing that steel strength underneath the lines or feeling the city looming in the distance. It's difficult to explain what I mean by creating a bang without actually being loud, but if I can use your second stanza as the example. What you currently have is:

My lungs crack and expand,
fill with the sweet scents of
hay, goldenrod, mallow, wood-rot,
and I think:
I will suffocate in the city.

What I want to see is a personification of this city and a sense of impending troubles or troubles behind. Something like:

My lungs crack and expand
under resuscitating pressures of
hay scents; goldenrod or mallow,
the wood-rot pushing through like
daisies.
And the city will, I think
be suffocation.

3. Some beautiful imagery in that fifth stanza. I don't feel much for those in between, but I like that one and I like how even there the city creeps in slowly with its streetlights and frightened horses; a reference to a part of nature that has been domesticated. That's a nice subtle touch.

4. I want to see more of a questioning of what is silence. I can see that's what you're thinking under the surface, that this isn't silence, just a quieter sound, but I'd like to see the narrator actually make that separation. Something like:

People ask how I can stand the silence
but what do they know of
the moth-wing whispers under a tulip
or the shifting of leaves with the gurgle
of an ocean.

When talking silence, try to avoid words like 'sound' because it's better to give the impression of what that sound is - a little onomatopoeia. We know that there is going to be sound as the silence is under dispute, but you have to make us hear it, not tell us about it.

Overall

Good ending and overall I like this. It's difficult to get that balance right between a soft tone and ground-breaking words, but it's the perfect tool here where your argument is that sometimes the quiet and calm are everything, while the thunder and explosion of a city is nothing.

So I really like the thinking behind it and the set up and it you can make a few careful edits to fix that then you're on to a winner. Rephrase here or there and say something in a different way that will make people stop to listen, then you'll have them.

Thanks for the read and let me know if you have any questions; I'm always willing to expand on my observations or to take a second look.

Heather xxx