The Day I Stopped Believing

Evenin’, Boo.

So, as far as a “my daddy left my family and this is how I feel about it” piece, you do fairly well. Now, it didn’t make me feel much, and I’ll get to that. It didn’t impress me very much with flow, and I’ll get to that. It did, however, bring resolution to an emotion that you open up from your heart and place into words—with quite a skill for your age, I might add.

So. Let’s work together and see if we can bring more life to this, if you’ll allow me.

First off, let’s address the misconception that every line in a poem must have a capital letter. It’s wrong. A lie. An untruth. False. So go through, first and foremost, and fix it. It’s my policy for poetry to write with intention. That means either 1.) write with correct grammar, as if you were writing a piece of fiction, or 2.) write without grammar at all. I suggest the first, but always write with intention.

So. Your first step is to make this intentional. Now, does that go beyond grammar?

You bet.

Everything about your poem—the grammar, the images, the phrasing, even the transitions between images and phrases are vital to your ultimate meaning. Every bit of ink you place on a page should count. With that said, read this to yourself: read it aloud and soak in the presence here. If you can’t feel sorrow, then you need more. If you can’t feel longing, then you need more. If you can’t feel rejection, can’t feel the neglect of losing your father, then you need more here.

And with that said, we begin this poem aloud.

I remember that day I stopped believing in you;

You’ll notice something here. I took lines one and two and made them one. Do you feel the difference in flow? The lack of a pause between day and I? It’s more aurally pleasing to me, though it could be personal taste. Anyway, considering content, I want to praise you for this. This is a sort of line you find in religious poems. It’s something that lots of people have done, and it’s a cliché in religious or anti-religious literature. But it works for you because you’re not talking about God, though you very well could be. Dualities make me happy. But you begin with this line that’s so deeply entrenched in connotations that it sets a very solid foundation for your poem. And then we continue on:

as the waves whisked by
like frosting on all those
birthday cakes you missed.

I get whiplash here. The image swaps from moving waves to a birthday cake—something that doesn’t move or animate itself in any way, so I think you have a failed comparison. And I know the emotional sentimentality of this line, and I appreciate that—but I don’t think it’s set up well enough for it to happen well. Anyway, I’m not going to dissect every part of the poem for you since it’s ultimately your poem. I do suggest nixing the birthday cakes. When you return to the seaward imagery, the poem gets very good, very deep—but the little nuances like the birthday cakes that leave me off-kilter here.

But your shoreline imagery is lovely, and you set your tone very well. Play around with your line breaks. They’re not very fresh or conducive to your flow. And watch yourself in the ending—you get a bit too lyrical for my tastes.

I hope this helps, so let me know if you have any questions or comments.

-Lumi

Boolovesyou,

What a great piece! I enjoyed it. I felt the message was clearly executed throughout. You did a decent job narrating as well as using the images of the waves. THANK YOU for interweaving these things. Loved it.

I loved the repetition of the waves as well, it provided a nice "ebb and tide" effect that fits perfectly with your piece.

I remember that day
I stopped believing in you

If you want the two lines to run together - "I remember that day I stopped believing in you" you would need to change "that" to "the"

If you want it to read, "I remember that day." pause "I stopped believing in you"
Then please use a period after day

Loved the frosting simile! A perfect transition here, great job!

The waves came to soon,

Should be 'too'


This is just a suggestion, see if you can find a better replacement for your abstractions. Mainly, I felt like your use of the word "hope" could be easily replaced with stronger word(s).

This is a great piece! Keep up the writing!

~ As always Audy

Very eloquent and beautifully written. Expresses the way humans want to belong to something more, be loved by someone else, and wanted as well. Before you mentioned that "Mom said you couldn't make it." the first image of the person the scripture described was an abandoning father, mainly because that is what pop culture has used to shape our minds around the thought of parents abandoning their children either literally or just not showing up like in the poem.

There are only certain spots where I myself would have written differently, but I do not criticize anyone for having a different writing style.

I stopped believing in you
As the waves whisked by,
Like frosting on all those
Birthday cakes you missed.

I would put a semi colon right after the word you in the first verse of the quote. Mainly just to emphasize the specific moment when the speaker realized that they would no longer believe in him.

The waves came to soon,

to should be too.

And etched our names by each other.

Perhaps, And etched out names beside each other. would flow a little bit better.

Even seven year old me

Seven year old should have hyphens in between the words such as: seven-year-old.

I think that may be it grammatically, but I enjoyed reading this! The depth was very thought-provoking and hooked me at the first few verses. Keep writing!

Wow, this is very beautifully written! I'm impressed. It has a wonderful flow, had a lot of emotion, and was really touching. There are a few places where the punctuation didn't seem quite right, so you may want to look over that.

Boolovesyou wrote:I remember that day
I stopped believing in you.
As the waves whisked by,
Like frosting on all those
Birthday cakes you missed.
That day I squished my toes
Into the sand,
And etched our names by each other. I think "side-by-side" would sound a bit better...
The waves came too soon,
And washed our names away.
I lost my hope -
And you left me broken.
Mom had said you couldn’t make it,
That there was traffic,
And you just got lost.
Even seven-year-old me
Didn’t believe it.
I let the waves wash away
The memories of you.
I remember that day
Like it was yesterday;
Another day you didn’t show.

Hope this helps!