Boundless

Hi BrownMatter,

This was an enjoyable read - you hit a good balance of ambiguity for interpretation without being vague / or detail-less. I could see multiple different interpretation possibilities folding out of the poem, and yet there was still imagery and emotion.

Interpretations
My first interpretation is the poem is sort of a dream-like future that the speaker struggled with the possibility of... maybe they struggle with suicidal ideation or have experienced dangers or health struggles in life that cause them to contemplate the real possibility of their death. They live beside the reality and sometimes feels as if they have already died. So they live concurrently with a future possible self.

My second interpretation is that the poem is about a sort of complicated type of empathy where they are so connected to the death of another individual (maybe a metaphorical death..) to the point where when this other person has died the speaker feels like they too have died. It's a warning? or mirror? of empathy and grief.

My third interpretation is that the poem depicts a particular aspect of their life that has died... their innocence? childhood? a past passion or joy? they are almost dissociated from this former part of themselves and yet they also recognize the same-ness.

And lastly, I think it could work for a person having a near-death-experience too!

strengths
I think the overall concept is unique and compelling - there's lots to think about in this poem. I also like the introspective question of "is it me?" it is! And I like how you balance introspection (inner talk) and outward depiction / description - I find this is very important in most poetry to make it come alive! Some authors will only have descriptions of a scene with no inner-talk, or vice-versa, and it makes it feel less true to life. But I do think you have a good balance here.

In addition to concept and balance, I think you did a really good job creating a mood in this poem - it wasn't just a one-note death is spooky sort of thing, there seemed to be a lot of depth behind the intention of the lines but also a gentleness when speaking about difficult subjects that intrigued me an pulled me in. I would love to see you really focus on honing in on that mood even more in a future revision as that is a clear strength of your writing-style!

things to consider
I have a few suggestions that are mostly coming from my personal poetic preferences, so if they're not landing with how you wanted the poem to be received please feel free to set these aside! Just giving some food for thought on areas I'd maybe take a second look at!

imagery - I feel like there's a lot of room for expansion in terms of imagery in this poem. The concrete details we have (pale, cold, rotting) are kind of the "standard" generic details for "dead" - they don't paint a picture or tell me anything new beyond that the figure is truly bodily deceased. I wonder what it might look like to describe the person's facial expression, their hair, their skin, the strangeness of death / coldness, and what it means to stay until the elements start to take over... I don't think you have to move the poem into the realm of "gory" but a few more concrete details I think would be a welcome addition to your piece.

watch for cliches - I don't quite know what this line "The eternity of a soul washing away the time of mortals" means - it didn't really connect with me as the phrasing didn't quite make sense. Is time washing souls? are souls washing time? ... is the corpse immortal? is time immortal? There's a few too many words in this sentence and I couldn't grasp it. It felt a bit like just throwing in the words "eternity" "soul" and "mortals" without much of that being explored in other sections... I see that the title is "boundless" so I do think this sentence is probably very intentional to the overall meaning of the poem, it just was hard to parse out for me. I would definitely re-visit this line and clear it up in future revisions.

Overall, compelling read! It drew me in and will leave me thinking for a while longer! Thank you for sharing / writing! (Oh and happy Review Month!)

~ A

Hi, BrownMatter!

I thought I’d drop by to leave a quick review on this poem! ^-^ First off, I really love the eerie atmosphere you create here. The narrator seeing themself after death is such a neat concept, and I think the short lines help make the poem feel suspended in that moment, making me think that time has stopped. I am not sure if that's literally the case, but it is fitting! The repetition of the narrator not remembering how long they stayed works really well too, because it gives the poem this drifting feeling. I also like the contrast between the physical body and the soul’s experience of time!

I’d suggest looking at is clarity in a couple places though. The italicized moment where the narrator recognizes the body is very effective, but the final line seems like it may be missing a word -- maybe 'eyes' after 'my'? If that’s intentional, you can totally leave it, but if not, it did pull me out of the poem for a second. I also wonder if you could expand the ending just a bit, because the idea of opening their eyes again is really intriguing and I wanted to know what kind of awakening was happening. It would be cool to understand more what is happening to the narrator instead of just being in their head for a few stanzas! Staying where exactly? Why does staying have a negative association for them?

I think it's very clear that you are good at atmospheric writing, and I wonder what your intention for the narrator was when you wrote this poem? Gorgeous nonetheless! <3

Aislynn