Ionic Bonds

Hello there <3 <3

I am the damsel from the future and shall relieve you of the torments inside the Green Room tower (this is cringeworthy but let me be). I hope that when you come back to this site, my review will help you improve.

First off, this was a really great poem. It came from a simple and ordinary setting most of us can relate with -- the school. However, your descriptions were spot on and it helped me, as a reader, sneak myself in the scene. I could visualise almost everything that it was truly relatable. The fact that you used the sense of scent was also a great addition. Perhaps it's just me but that's one of the factors in Chemistry that I remember and dislike the most.

Now, when I said almost everything, that's because you've diluted (lol) the quality of the third stanza. There were little descriptions, albeit it was an attempt to associate the poem to its title. The fact that you said, "we were bonded" meant that the humans were the ionic bond. So it's much better if you center the third part from that. Instead of describing their backpacks and the classroom door (which is pretty far off sorry), why not their actual interaction? Dialogues, skin brushing skin, meeting up with your mates, etc. This is just a suggestion but it would be fun if you played with those instances and differentiate human interaction through different types of bonding(rather than using only ionic bonds). To illustrate, covalent bonding = friends, ionic bonding = acquaintances // org mates, and the collective mass of students going to their respective classrooms could be metallic bonding.

You could add some flavour to the poem as well. There's barely little emotion, besides the middle part of the first stanza. In here,

We wore chemisty like a crown of thorns,
blinking and trying to
shake off the feeling under the bright
interrogation lights of the school corridors.

it was a missed potential. What did this "we" look like and how could you say (from their reactions) that they were wearing "crown of thorns." Frankly, I only filled in the blanks, thinking that the emotion of the poem was "irritation" because that's what a chem laboratory task is for me. But in the overall poem, I can't see you saying that besides the "crown of thorns." You've only described how they linger but you didn't exaggerate or record even one of the student's expressions to help us affirm from the start what emotion they were feeling, such as adding the word "foul" in the "smell of bunsen burners." In this case, we can already assume the negative connotation of the adjective equating to their negative viewpoints.

You can argue with me by saying that you did affirm it, but only in the latter. If you do some introspection, the way we describe things is predicated from our moods so hinting about that from the very start makes it more realistic (if that makes sense oof).

The bell rings, excusing us from
fourth period lab. Plastic goggles
in the cabinet, heavy aprons
unsnapped and hung by the door,
we stepped out into the hallway.

Last critique would be that this is a bit tacked on. It doesn't really add much to the emotion of the poem and felt like an unnecessary exposition. My suggestion (feel free to disregard) is adding snippets of the students itching to get out of there. Describe the scene as some kind of horrendous class of alchemy filled with gremlin (lol) students. Helped the reader feel like they wouldn't want to go in there as well.

Oki. That's about it. If I sound harsh, I'm so so sorry! You're the poet so you can choose what you think is useful. This is simply my take on it. Feel free to ask any questions or clarifications if I said anything confusing lolol.

I hope that this 2020, you're still writing <3