Let our sorrow bleed

Let's begin.

Stems of white orchids hung from the ceiling in test tubes filled with clear water.

The way this is worded is weird. It's implying to me that the white orchids themselves are hanging upside down from the ceiling, and as a result, the test tubes themselves would be upside down. So then how is the test tube able to hold both the orchid and the water itself if it's upside down? I get what you're trying to say, but your wording needs to be more precise here.

Yet despite the dizzying variety being displayed, it creates an organized chaos and a sweet, fragrant tea scent settled serenely within the room.

Your use of the adjective "dizzying" and oxymoron of "organized chaos" does a very good job of painting a claustrophobic room that's filled with flowers.

"May I?" I removed my shoes, about to step in for a better look.

A nit-pick, but who actually removes their shoes indoors? If said person is coming in to the house, that would of been more kosher.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened."

"Have you ever seen moths inside a vacuum cleaner?"

"Moths....vacuum cleaner?" I parroted her uncertainly, what do moths and vacuum cleaner had to do with this.

"At first, they flutter anxiously against the vacuum cleaner, desperate to get out. But over a period of time, they settled down and even when they're tipped out of the vacuum cleaner. You have to physically nudge them to get them moving again." She stopped and a sigh unraveled from her lips slowly, then continued. "You're like the moth, dropped out of a vacuum and you have to shed something in order to live again."

"What exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying that, you need to find a way to bleed out whatever is clogging you up."

"Like shed blood?" I questioned, is she asking me to self-harm.

"No, is a metaphor."

"Oh."

Hmm, I have a few problems here. Firstly, this bit just comes out of the blue. By that, I mean it's really strange that all of a sudden, Rina says something that only a person suffering from some mental illness would say, when there was little to no character development in the previous sections of Rina's character that would suggest that.

And secondly, could you be any less obvious that this is a metaphor? This has the subtly of a train wreck. Her dialogue is forced in a way to explain the metaphor, and top it all off, you even had Rina explicitly state that it's a metaphor. It's like your using Rina to lecture the metaphor to the reader. I really hate that. Not only does it make her dialogue and actions not realistic, but it also breaks the show, don't tell rule too.

Overall impressions:

The piece has potential, but as it is, I don't like the piece at all. Your first half is where all the gold is, but the second half is where the piece goes downhill. There are some snippets and ideas on here that I felt could use more developing and that you might want to focus more on (btw this is technically your best writing to date).

Let's start with the first section. So I liked how you described the flowers to give us a sense of what Rina's character is like. But you don't really build anything about Rina from that in the later sections. Because of that, all your nice description really did was left implications of what her character could be, but we couldn't really extract any tangible information of what's she's like. Yea OK, she's pretty, may be bit of loon, and has sadness hidden inside of her, but what understanding of her am I supposed to get? More about her later.

The guy struck me as quite insecure, creepy and clingy, and really likes to get it on with the girl. Before I go on about, I would also like to point out that I found their exchange in regards to the flower quite forced and unrealistic too. I don't know what idea you are trying to imply here, but I find it really stupid that the guy is over the moon for simply touching a really soft and delicate flower, and even questioning if the flower's real or not. Like really dude, what have you been doing all this time? (And btw, yes I can see that the flower is also a representation of Rina, but come on now).

So for the next few sentences, you pretty much described how pretty and delicate the girl was (like a flower), and the guy getting real aroused by this to the point of lusting the girl and wanting to make love with her. OK yea, fair enough (and you described it fairly well). But then I got to this bit:

You stupid, stupid man.

Hmm, interesting, yet randomly placed there. Having read that, I got the impression that the guy used to be with another girl and was head over heels about her too until he got too obsessed, possessive and lustful that the girl needed to break up with him. So I kept reading to see where you are getting at with this.

In the second section, the first paragraph posed the idea that the girl is quite sad about something deep down. I liked that you also did a compare and contrast thing, in which you state that people don't show sadness when they sleep. I was actually quite interested in knowing more about her back story, or why she is so upset so I could sympathize with her more as a character. But nope, you don't ever develop this further.

What I did know though after that paragraph (and the small one after that) is more of an understanding as to why this guy wants to be with the girl. Pretty much, he wants to have some power and control over her so that he could get more of the benefits and security of being with a girl, and the only way to achieve that is to manipulate her weaknesses by being over protective of her.

The conversation following that verifies what I think of the guy. Girl wants some time away from him, guy gets anxious about it and seeks validation from the girl, to which she gave him the flower in the petri dish. It's quite nice of her to do that, and it does give me some idea that she is a kind hearted person, but again, you don't sustain/develop this later in the piece. You can't just have one big burst of a character moment and pat yourself on the back and call that characterization, you need to write more situations/ dialogue which supports this character trait.

Starting from the third section is where I felt the piece went downhill. You mentioned all these other dates that they have, but I don't see how his feelings for her could of gotten stronger, when they were pretty strong in the first place. A lot of detail is left out here, and I felt you didn't know how to develop this further. All you did was simply repeat the idea that he thinks she's delicate and "needs protecting" but using different words.

And then came the predicted receding of the girl's feelings for him. Except there is a big gaping hole like the size of Gargantua in 'Interstellar' as to why the girl started not having feelings for him anymore. Yea the guy got too much, but keep in mind that there are girls out there that can tolerate, even like a guy like that. So you have to think about why the girl liked the guy in the first place, and once she got to know him better, what aspects about him didn't she agree with?

The last section is where I found things highly questionable. So I've already mentioned that the dialogue is forced and not subtle, but I also think that since little was shown of the actual decline of the relationship, it's really random and sudden to get a scene talking about the guy needing a push, a motivation, or some way to get rid of his burdens to find the strength to go on.

Also, the entire piece up to this point was about the guy lusting for the girl. Although by implication, since he's insecure and needy, he may be depressed, not once did you talked about the idea that everything is not OK in his life. What exactly is making this guy not happy? Is it because he's stuck in a low end job, lives in a run down apartment, and struggles to make enough to pay his debts/rent etc while still having enough to pay for food and other stuff? Is it because he thinks he's physically and mentally not attractive? Is it because he believes that if he ever ends up in a relationship with an attractive girl, it'll be due to luck? Is it a mixture of all these things? I just don't see a convincing enough reason that the guy would misinterpret what the girl said and would consider killing himself as a twisted way to unburden his sorrow.

OK yea, there are people out there that are actually stupid enough to consider killing themselves when the person they love no longer loves them anymore, but what's the point of even having deeper meaning and set up in your piece if your outcome is "Oh I'm going to kill myself because my girlfriend broke up with me"?

In my mind, this piece should be about why a girl with a good heart and a sadness deep inside would be interested in an insecure guy like that in the first place, why the guy would fall madly in love/ be infatuated by this girl, and exploring why such a relationship works/doesn't work. What I think left you down is you have a lot of repetition of ideas (such as the idea of the guy lusting for the girl), strains of ideas which never get fleshed out, and lack of character development.

At its core right now in the form it's in, it's really just about an insecure guy who gets desperate about keeping this girl, but girl eventually rejects him, and the guy considers committing suicide to unburden his sadness, just disguised through some of your heavy handled metaphors and unrealistic character interactions. I have no sympathy for these characters at all. Because of that, that's why I don't like this piece.

I hope this review helped.
Andy.

Hey, Flite! Happy Review Day!

Jars of flowers filled the room, resting upon the wooden shelves in an orderly line.

I'd recommend passive voice here: "The room was filled with jars of flowers." It places the subject up front and makes things easier to absorb.

scarlet amaryllis. Stems of white orchids

I don't understand why the third sentence was separated from the second. I could give some technical terms to justify my non-understandingness, I guess, but I'll just go with a piece of advice: use your periods sparingly. Every fragment should serve a purpose, whether it be emphasis, drama, or a stylistic device, and your style doesn't read like you use a lot of fragments.

If you want a pause, I'd recommend shooting for a semicolon or an M-dash.

Yet despite the dizzying variety being displayed, it creates an organized chaos and a sweet, fragrant tea scent settled serenely within the room. But what snatched attention was a pure white flower nestled in a clear petri dish on her bedside table.

Sorry for the huge chunk. I tried slimming it down, but its will weakened and it ate a bag of Cheetos. >.<

Beginning with a coordinating conjunction ... I mean, sometimes you can pull it off, but I wouldn't advise it. There's too high a risk of the paragraph becoming choppy.

To backtrack now, take a look at "variety being displayed." Try to clip stuff wherever and whenever possible, because simpler phrases pack more punch, and your purpose as a writer is conveying information as clearly as possible.

"Creates an organized chaos." Here's an amazing oxymoron I'd love the narrator to extend!

But the real problem is the oxymoron itself; it's contradicting the "yet," which's already contradicting the opening sentence, and then "organized" comes along to contradict the oxymoron contradicting the "yet" that's already contradicting the opening sentence. My eyes are spinning in their sockets.

Say you get rid of the oxymoron. "It creates [___]." It's still weak and dilute. Try exchanging "create" for a stronger verb.

Moving on, I'm going to contradict what I said about using periods sparingly. There's a guideline I try to follow where each sentence houses an individual idea, and if that idea has branches, I use transitions to fuse them with the trunk (aka, the subject). I counted two "branches" in this sentence and they correlate to different trunks (subjects): a tea-like scent settling in the room (scent), the flowers displaying an organized chaos (flowers).

I'd recommend just splitting the clauses into two sentences. You could say the smell reflects the flowers' "organized chaos," I guess, but that's more complicated.

"A sweet, fragrant tea scent." It's another sentence-long (potentially paragraph-long) description compressed into a phrase. And how do we know it's specifically tea? Are there tea leaves somewhere in the room? Is the scent generated by the flowers? Telllll us.

Maybe "a sweet, vaguely tea-like scent"?

"Settled serenely within the room." I like the adverb. I don't like "within the room" because before, the narrator was discussing a specific aspect of the room; now they're discussing the whole room.

"But what snatched attention." Check Nitpicks 2 and 3.1 (heh), and I'd recommend inserting a pronoun between "snatched" and "attention."

Tenthly, "a pure white flower" is structured the same as "clear petri dish." It's neither of their faults, but ... it looks kinda messy, with them being used perpendicular to each other. I'd try exchanging the article before "flower" for "the" (to increase its significance) and removing "pure white," so there's more room for you to describe it in the next paragraph. As for "clear petri dish," I'd recommend specifying how clear it is (to guide the reader's attention toward the adjective): "transparent petri dish."

Tenth-and-a-half-ly, I counted three prepositions. I'd let that pass, but considering how close they are to each other ... maybe you could shift things around a bit: "was the flower on her beside table, nestled in a clear plastic Petri dish." (I added another adjective because I felt like the sentence cut off too abruptly without it, and it contributed alliteration, which is always nice.)

I promise I won't nitpick the other paragraphs as much.

The flower upon closer inspection was indeed a mysterious shade of silvery white. Even its stem and leaves were a misty silver colour.

I think the sentence is lacking some commas: "Upon closer inspection, the flower was a shade of silvery white [elaborate on this, maybe?], and its stem and leaves were enveloped [covered, cloaked, clothed--take your pick] in a silver mist." I moved "upon closer inspection" to the beginning.

"Is....it real?"

An ellipsis is three dots. The reason you sometimes see four is a period at the end, but in this case there's no period, so: "Is it ... real?" (The spaces are a stylistic choice; some people add a space after, some people don't add spaces at all, and like me, some people add a space before and after.)

The flower now apparently ignored.

I think the fragment would sound better combined with a sentence, and I don't get what it's trying to convey, either. Did she cast the flower away? What'd she do with it?

the soft smile that hung on her lips.

I love this. Love, love, love this.

Quick grammar thingy: since the smile wasn't referred to before, "the" should be exchanged for "a."

She loosened her thick brown hair, a lustrous cascade of chocolate brown and the rest came off just as smoothly, and what stands before me buzzes and becomes a roaring growl in my brain.

The narrator switched tenses halfway through the sentence: "came" and "stands."

"A lustrous cascade of chocolate brown" is also an appositive (I think), so there should be a comma after it, and "chocolate brown" should be hyphenated.

One more thing. How can something transform from a buzz to a growl? Not that I'm don't like the verbs, but they're so unique, I feel like the narrator should elaborate on them (and I spy an opportunity for more sensory detail).

Who am I kidding, the canine-loyal lust inside me snarled angrily.

Whoa. The atmosphere just shifted from enigmatic to casual, like the reader's well-familiar with the character: "who am I kidding." I mean, I like it; it just threw me off a bit.

Try polishing the transition, or you could omit the rhetorical question entirely.

a person appear younger

Noun-verb consistency: "a person appears younger."

They all say in sleep a person appear younger, they say sleep erases the superficial sadness and brief respite is granted. Lies.

I'll go ahead and kill a couple birds with one stone:

1) Noun-verb consistency: "a person appears younger."

2) I smell a comma splice (no conjunction to bridge the independent clauses). Exchange the comma for a semicolon or a period.

3) What's the narrator accusing of lying? Generalization? I like the attempt to strengthen their voice, but they came on a little strong.

And I didn't include the other sentences in the paragraph, but the tense got muddled. The narrator kept flickering between past and present.

As I kept reading, I spotted more and more comma splices. They're an easy trap to fall into. They look like stylistic devices, but they're actually grammar errors (whereas fragments are stylistic devices and grammar errors). Try semicolons instead.

in sleep

Keep an eye out for redundancy.

There was something fathomlessly fragile in the planes of her face, like the last blossom of a sakura tree.

Amazingness. Such amazingness that I'm going to ask you to elaborate. The images this simile evoked ... wow, and I wish the narrator could've fleshed them out. A single blossom shivering on a branch. Breaking off, bit by bit. Carried away by the wind.

Such limpid blue eyes

Again, I feel like you could go so much further with this.

"D..did I do something wrong?"

Just a good guideline to go by, but I've heard of people who don't do it because it doesn't fit their style: How to Punctuate in Your Prose.

The ellipsis should be three dots, but you usually don't use ellipses with stuttering. That kind of thing is reserved for hyphens and M-dashes: "D-Did I do something wrong?" or "Did—did I do something wrong?"

Ellipses are great for confusion, though. "Did ... I do something wrong?"

On our fourth date, I found out why. In the midst of my passion, like a candle snuffed out by a draft of cold air.

I think these two sentences would serve much better combined. They fit under one category, and the fragment doesn't contribute any dramatic effect, anyway, seeing as it contains a comma.

I parroted her uncertainly, what do moths and vacuum cleaner had to do with this.

Comma splice! I also spotted a rhetorical question without a question mark: "What did [...] have to do with this?" (The tense was a bit muddled, so I played around.)

I questioned, is she asking me to self-harm.

Same case here.

Soon after Rina left the apartment

I'd recommend a comma to clear things up: "Soon after, Rina" or "Soon after Rina left the apartment, [omit the coordinating conjunction] I..."

I know those nitpicks were petty, but the better a piece is, the more room it frees up to analyze.

I don't think you need to be told that your descriptions are ... great. More than great. Fantastic, really. You have a gift where you can communicate a lot in a few words. Your pace's well-measured, the detail emphasis was spot-on, and the ending impressed a delicious sense of finality. I was left wondering what happened to the narrator, but it felt complete, at the same time. The moth-vacuum metaphor was genius.

Keep it up! I can't wait to read more of your work.

Hi Flite! Such a lovely night this review day and your piece has fallen prey to me! So, happy review day!

So the only nitpick I managed to see in the entire piece is:

No, is a metaphor.

I suppose you meant to say It's a metaphor.

So, Rina. I'm guessing that she is a prostitute? I love how you start off with the rose. Of all the details, you start out with a simple flower. But I guess that is the flower that leads a one-night stand into multiple dates. In hindsight, it is a very powerful, and I'm guessing, a very unique flower.

The only way to look sad in sleep is to be sadder when awake, but not show it at all. The reason why people say you look younger in sleep is because in sleep, all the events in your life don't matter any more, because, well, you're asleep!

I don't get why everyone is saying you need a larger vocabulary. It seems just fine to me and it gives the piece a simple, but detailed, beauty. (I'm sorry, but I only caught the matter-of-fact tone at the end)

Well, keep writing!

~Lost