12+

Fragile Breaths

Footsteps on hard wet concrete
and I remind myself to breathe.
It'll all pass soon like clouds in the sky,
but my fragile breaths are hard to fight.

Rain drops flutter on my eyelashes
as I blink against the cold mist.
I take a deep breath and I move my foot again.
It'll all pass soon like clouds in the sky.

But my fragile breaths are hard to fight.

Comments & reviews · 6
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User avatar
Aley
Review
Aley wrote a review · Mon Mar 28, 2016 4:21 am

Hey Alice,

This is really good, you have a nice tone in the poem, it's very vivid and easy to feel. I really like how you equip this poem with unique language and that sort of lilting tone about what's going on. You're using a lot of packed language like "fragile" and "flutter" which is good, so keep it up.

You're a little lack luster in the emotional department but that's probably because of the length and subject. While you're using those packed words, you're not really employing them in any sort of direction, so if you added a line here or there that actually just came out and said something akin to a feeling, like a direct metaphor for the feeling you want to incorporate, if you want to incorporate one, then that would improve the emotional content of the poem.

My review to you, however, is about overuse of words. You have "breathe" or "breath" or something akin to "breathing" 4 times in this short poem, twice in the first stanza, once in the second, and again in the last. This really doesn't give us much of a chance to imagine or add information because it's just breathing. You could use pant, gasp, wheeze, sigh, suck in, exhale, anything to be more descriptive than the same word 4 times. In poetry, you want to avoid using words that are open categories like that (nouns, verbs, adjectives) more than once because the second time you come across a need for that word, you can use different language to combine connotation with your intent, and emotional exploration. It's going to give you a better product to change up your language frequently.

That's all I really have to say. You're doing very very well with your poetry. I love the improvement I've seen.

User avatar
Songmorning
Comment

Lovely! It's also interesting knowing the context in which you wrote it.

I think, in the second line, you meant "breathe" instead of "breath", since "breathe" is the verb.

Right! Thanks :D

User avatar
Amabilia
Comment

I actually thought to myself when I read this, I bet this will be in the literary spotlight

It already is :D :D :D I'm glad/sad that you relate. Anxiety and worry sucks but it's nice to know I'm not the only one who suffers from it.

User avatar
herbgirl
Review

Hi! herbgirl here for the review!
First of all, I would like to say I really like the picture this poem paints in the mind. The person's feelings you describe are very easy to relate to for me, I can sort of see myself in the character, and I imagine many others do too.
Besides the general idea of the poem, I liked the flow of the first stanza. It doesn't quite rhyme, yet the rhythm is really great. It made it kind of quick and nice and easy to read, which I really like. However, the second stanza didn't have quite the same flow. I'm not really sure how you might fix this, put there seemed to be to many syllables in the third line. Besides that, I also think that the way you had the repetition of the fourth line of the first stanza by itself made the poem a little choppy towards the end. I suggest that if you wanted to have that repetition, you could add a new line to the first stanza, and make that repeated line a separate line as you did at the end.
Anyways, I really liked the poem's theme and imagery, and think that perhaps with these few tweaks your poem could be even better!
Thanks for the read,
herbgirl

User avatar
TZH
Comment

Cute little poem. What to say in a review as it has no mistakes. As per My view is Comcerned its awesomely written and beautifully carved
Language is simple and nice. Very easy to understand either
Very nice piece of poetry. Great job. Keep up the good writing. Stay blessed :-)

User avatar
twistedracer01
Comment

Ok ... This is a short, buitifull piece and it over all really good.

So the imagry was exelent and I did notice some fiquritve lanquage so good job

No grammer mistakes or any spelling ones eighther

Sorry this was short but good job and keep writing



Remember, hate is always foolish, and love is always wise!
— The 12th Doctor