Warning: This work has been rated 18+.
sat staring at this dim screen again
letting dust collect on my coat
how many days has it been? ten?
try my best to ignore those fitted regrets
as i desperately pray to find a friend
cause i feel as helpless as a kid
--------
looking up to a world too large and confusing for a kid
i may be big but i cant help but feel small again
kind of forgot what is means to have a friend
and running out of reasons to put on that coat
ill walk naked in the cold, i deserve to regret
fuck it ill wait till its negative ten
--------
Take a breath. Just count to ten
You are more than you were as a kid
We do love you, you are not our regret.
Don’t let your past drag you down again
take care of yourself, put on that damn coat
be good to yourself before you worry about friends
--------
But I need the validation. Isn’t that a friend?
It doesn’t feel like I’ve changed since I was ten
I haven’t even stopped wearing that old coat
clinging to it like a safety blanket since i was a kid
Don’t bother. can’t listen to this lecture again.
The words are only triggers to the vestige of regret
--------
have your actions effects finally resonated with regret?
you use us, then lose touch. that’s your idea of a friend
we’re too tired to play your games again
you can’t call it a second chance when you’re at ten
shout that you can handle it, but react like a kid
and jesus christ do you ever clean that coat
--------
halfway through the wandering i wish i had that coat
legs fall into the crisp snowfall, forced to embrace regret
desperate for the warmth of mother hugging her kid
desperate for the trust to hold onto a friend
desperate to turn back time to when i was ten
fuck it i’m just plain desperate again
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140,681 Literary Works • 673,591 Reviews
Oh, this is so nice.
.I really like this. Your plain language whipped into a sestina is lovely and raw at the same time. I appreciate your use of internal rhyme, as well as rhyming many of the end words. I don't usually enjoy too much rhyme, but here, it adds something to the poem.
That being said, there are a few things I'd like to address about this poem.
First of all, there's a typo when you say
Also, this line is confusing, and I was wondering if you were missing a comma or something that would make it clearer?
Now that those little items of business are out of the way, let's dive into your meter. Like I said before, I think your rhyme is serving this poem very well. Rhyme goes excellently with good meter, like steak and red wine. Or cookies and milk. Whichever.
I usually figure out the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem, but this poem does not have a formal tone, and I fear that focusing too much on the nitty gritty would change the tone of the poem. What I've been doing is literally keeping a steady beat with my hand, and seeing if I can fit each line into two slow beats. Many of them do, and it creates a very nice rhythm. Your natural meter is quite good. However, there are some spots that not only don't fit into that, but just seem awkward next to lines with better meter.
Fitted, ironically, isn't really fitting here. I think the line would sound a lot better without it.
This line is waaaaay longer than a lot of the lines around it. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the meter. "Seeing a world too confusing for a kid" would fit nicely, and convey the same idea.
I think this would be more streamlined if you said, "i may be big, but i feel small again."
this line feels awkward to me, in content as well as meter. I'm not quite sure how to describe any kind of fix for the awkward, though.
"worry about" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Perhaps find a different word than worry? It's just a mouthful.
I would take out "the" because without that one syllable, the meter is really nice.
I feel like there is just one extra syllable in there, and it's in "safety blanket." The fix that popped into my head was "my mother" instead of "safety blanket," but you are the poet.
This would flow more smoothly if it was just "act" and not "react." I don't think the semantics here would change anything between the two.
Apart from the meter, you use "fall" twice very close to one another. Just thought I'd point that out. I think this line would work within the poem and meter better if you said, "legs fall into crisp snow; forced to love regret."
Altogether, I think I got a bit carried away with the meter editing. You shouldn't make any changes that you don't think are necessary, but I think that a lot of your natural meter really lends itself to being read out loud, so I figured I'd help you streamline it in case you ever wanted to turn this into a performance piece. I like the content and the down to earth language that you use. I hope that this review proves useful to you! Happy poeting!
The meter comments were in no way overboard, and I really appreciate the depth you put into it.
I actually posted this to get some comments about the flow and meter because I was gearing up for a poetry slam competition. Yoru comments were a great baseline for my final edits. Even if I didn't do the exact, the points you raised were very helpful and I think I changed all but 2 of the lines you pointed out. (And as a result, I must give you credit on helping me get 2nd place in the Slam)
DANG
GOOD JOB
That's amazing! I'm so glad that I decided to critique this <3
Congratulations!
The thought and the whole thing that you want to show to the readers was kind of unclear at the very beggining so the reader need to stay and read it till the end or several times (like me) to get it.I do not know if this is a common thing with the punctuation but I see it here also.I had seen that after a fullspot there is no capital letter following.
The capital letters also.You have them on some places and on others-no.Overall I think it is pretty well made and written.Just continue doing your thing!
Ohh! A sestina! I've written some before, such a complex format, but if done well it all comes together so beautifully. I'm assuming you meant to separate the last stanza into two, though? If not, you probably should separate them after the 12th line of the second stanza.
Anyway, maybe this is just due to my own ignorance, but I was a bit confused. I don't really know what's going on in the beginning of the poem. Why is your narrator contemplating walking naked in the cold? This poem seems like it is about loneliness and desperation for affection and friends, so I don't really understand how that part is relevant to the rest of the poem. I'm assuming the coat is a symbol, but that is also a little confusing.
The next thing I noticed is that you didn't have any capital "I"s in the first stanza, but you had them until halfway through the second stanza and then made them lowercase again. Some people choose to not have any capital letters in their poetry as a stylistic choice, and that is fine, but it should be consistent. Either capitalize all of them or none of them. I also think it would be beneficial to change "ill" to "I'll" or "I will", because I was confused the first time I read it and had to read it again to realize that you meant "I will" and not "ill" as in sick.
In conclusion, this was a nice poem, and the sestina format was consistent except for separating the second stanza. However, your message in the beginning wasn't very clear to me and it wasn't until about halfway through that I realized what this poem was about, so maybe you should work on making the message more clear. Keep writing and have a wonderful day/night!
EDIT I wrote this before you edited it, so I see now that the stanzas are separated.
Thank you for the comments!
I realize the I(s) were a bit inconsistent. The main reason was I was trying to use capitalization on them to show voice. The first two stanzas were supposed to sound more defeated, whereas the stanza with capitals were meant to imply a more charged voice. Though I do see what you mean about consistency.
The cold was meant to be more a metaphor for suffering in silence/alone. The coldness of loneliness, and play off the coat which had a more shifting symbolic meaning for me. I did see how it could be jarring though, so I took your advice and tried to ease it more into a natural metaphor with some of the context'd lines.
Thanks for the advice!