keeping composure

Oi, Spike, you hurt me so well and thoroughly. Let's talk about it.

Something unique this piece pulls off is the well-adopted sensation of slowed time that is so keynote of depression. That murky, heaviness that takes shackle-home on the wrists and ankles. Yes. But I believe part of this comes in the reread value presented due to the process of composing and preparing oneself only to face the [conceived] fact that there is only more waiting and heaviness beyond the preparation. It begs a cyclical read, which I think is also keynote of the depressive theme given.

That said, there are loose ends abundant here--the first arguably being the title? I understand that the composure comes up in 2/3 of the poem, but it doesn't add to the value of the piece since we get that abundance of composure motif. I'm hard-pressed to tell you what to change inside the piece because the pacing is so tightly-tuned for flow's sake that it feels as though most changes would dismantle a fragile filigree. Considering this, I feel the image of the seeds should evolve instead of returning to the composure note. It's worth an experimental edit? I'm unsure about this. Stanzagraph two feels quite weak as a bolster for the power that follows, so consideration for more time in this area would be a good idea. This is also where I feel you have the most precious room to expand or dedicate realms to more content, so if you're going to add another shackle, add it here.

And that's really all, Spike. You wrote a gorgeous piece that I love. I hope this helps.
Ty

Beautifully written - I've fallen in love with this!

Let's give this a shot.

So this poem interested me in that it was directed towards 'you' which from what I understand is the universal or general 'you'. I wondered throughout the poem why it was written this way and I think the poem kind of ended up building around that idea of writing to 'you'. I've never been entirely fond of the usage of 'you' for the whole poem, but I think this is more of an experience than anything else.

Anyone can be this person and I think that's something to put emphasis on with this poem. 'You' is not specific, and being that way it's easy for the reader to fill the empty gaps that are left in the shoes of the poem in terms of interpretation, but I would have liked a little more of a guide. The first stanza kind of gives off this feel and tone of a person that never really wants to leave the house and someone who has gotten used to being alone. I think that imagery that includes a gentle hum or ringing in the ears would make for good sensory detail here, but it's really your choice there.

Later on in the stanza we get imagery of pulling up the floorboards and planting seeds underneath them which is something that interested me. I wanted more of the process that went on with this, are they pressing seeds down into the ground six inches deep? Onto the second stanza, I didn't really find the tone from before to still be there and I couldn't really get into the imagery with the face in the mirror.

I think if it was better explained I would have liked it more--is this face blank but starting to form? Is it forming like clay with all the facial features blurry and kind of uncertain? You could also give us something with fog on the mirror, but I mostly just wanted something more of the imagery that you had and a better bridge or connection for it to the first stanza. Onto the third stanza, it's more of a general one that lacks imagery and more-so focuses on the theme of the poem.

I thought that the 'not really' is something that added to the poem by miles as it made the ending with a stronger emotional impact attached to it. So from how I'm interpreting the poem this is about everything staying the same and only now do the images start to connect more, but I think that sprinkles of clarity in the subtly of this throughout the poem would do good to better imbue this because we don't really get the feel of 'things never change' from this poem and more of a gentle and quiet tone. Overall, this was quite the beautiful poem that you've written.

I hope I helped and have a great day!