Published January 31, 2013
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Hi Chrysalia and welcome to YWS!
I read the poem first then looked at the picture. I liked the picture, but I'm going to focus on the poem itself.
This falls flat because it's used a lot (more often with "heart of hearts" but they're not too different in meaning). It might be more powerful if you show what connects you to this person.
Um, are you talking about one person or multiple? I assume your lover isn't your sibling...Pick one and stick with it.
I love the second line here, but this is the third time you've used "anymore", and in fact you start both stanzas with essentially the same line. Repetition can work, but I don't think it does here. I'd replace one (preferably the first to start out strong) with a concrete action. For example: "I don't wear black these days".
I'm not a fan of this line. This idea is used in so many contexts that just saying it like this becomes near meaningless. It would be stronger to show us a concrete time when you miss this person. I love the final line though.
Overall, this is a solid idea, but it could be made stronger with more concrete imagery. Keep writing!
Oh my gosh. I'm so glad I went down to the comments first to see the artwork you included. It has a really awesome feeling, especially paired with the words all scattered over like that. I'd recommend editing your piece to include the link up where people are sure to see it when they review! Also, what's weird is I think if you and I were doodling, we'd doodle the same shapes. I do that leafy-thing all the time!
As for the meat of the poem, I really like what it leaves me with. I'm not entirely clear on what the relationship or situation is, but I think just the mention of time and space, the concreteness with which the possibility of resurrection is mentioned, and the "moments of vacant time" line, it seems to really stretch out of this world and into a narrative I might not understand even if I tried. That might be biased by your art work, too, so that's where my thoughts are coming from.
I would recommend, however, maybe bringing in a little bit more concreteness to make this poignant poem really heart-achey. What are the specific items or objects or moments or feelings that used to remind this speaker of the other. Think, if you've seen Pixar's UP, of the chair left behind, the other side of the table, etc. And now, how is that frozen over? How is that lived with? I hear the speaker saying, "I can do it. I don't cry over you as much anymore," but I want to know how. I want to know the moment he/she learned how. When did he/she change? What caused it?
I love the separation of the last line from the rest of the poem. You play with space really well: you leave the first stanza hanging with "free", and you talk about keeping the cold away (which plays with terms of distance between the speaker and the cold) at the end of the second. I wonder if you couldn't do something similar with the ending of the third, though it's a dependent clause, so it nicely flows into the last line anyway.
I'm just saying. You have a lot of goodness going on here. I want some more.
PM me with any questions or comments about my review, please, as we don't receive notifications for replies to reviews just yet.
Good luck, and keep writing, and I am so excited to see more of your work up and around the site. Welcome!
This picture is a companion piece to the poem
http://dradianfarrunes.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5spglv