i have learned in these
recent months
that i can live without oxygen, live
without food, live without light or dark
or him, entirely
but there is something in your tepid skin
that grounds me.
i find it in the same
burning feeling
of lightning in my chest
not unlike the thoughts i used to know of him
but infinitely different in the force
with which it holds me.
i can count the stars
and recount
our memories to strangers
with a raging passion in my veins
unlike any other moments
which pass my charring lips.
i have found recently
the strength
to stand without guidance
and to hold my own in blue eyes
and a crashing horizon
but i have lost
recently the will
to resist those sparkling eyes
and the smile you find
when your ribs bruise from laughter.
i have learned in these
recent months
a desperate need
for your shadow at my side
and your presence
at the edge of my fleeting mind.
you follow oddly in my
footsteps
unconsciously, unknowingly
beside me at the wheel
as dawn chases daylight away
and time moves on, slowly.
there is only so long
that you or i can deny
the blazing in my irises
or the pain within the trembling hands
that reach for you
as water pricks sand at oceans
and i nearly cry into the night –
as you did, nights ago
when i hushed you into my arms,
held you and then left you
with no words needed,
as i know you better
than moon and sun
or other partners who have chased
each other through the centuries
and you are not even mine.
i call you ‘friend’ in
spirit of
cat and mouse, which we play
and have played
without even knowing
in the passing of time.
i have learned in
recent months
that though your heart beats and
my lungs breathe
one cannot exist without the other
at least,
i cannot exist without you.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,874 Reviews
That was absolutely mind blowing!
I really love the 5th stanza where you said:
"but i have lost recently the will
to resist those sparkling eyes
and the smile you find
when your ribs bruise from laughter."
One thing, your "I"s need to be capitalized.
Everything else is perfect!
Keep up the good work!
~Sweet
Thanks for the review!
See my below comment: 'i' does not have to be capitalized.
Have a nice night!
Very awesome point of view!! I never even thought of writing like that before! Your really smart.
~Sweet
Hi there. I thought I would comment back to you guys just to point out some things. Firstly, I do appreciate all of you who took the time to review! This was a poem written on very little sleep and far too much emotion so it's certainly not perfect and I appreciate any criticism.
However, I think you are all a bit dismissive of writing style! Though our education constantly teaches us that capitalization is a must and verb follows noun and so on, poetry is an extremely malleable thing. The lack of capitalization is not at all an error but instead a choice to emphasize the narrator's message. As is other odd word switches, such as "i have lost recently the will," and the decision to use '' instead of "". These are all part of my writing style. I encourage all of you to branch out and write something out of the conventions of normal writing! Develop your poetic self beyond the reaches of English grammar. That doesn't mean write jumbled letters and call it a poem but it does mean that you should feel free to capitalize or not as you please, throw in punctuation when you need it (punctuation in poetry is often good for pauses, not even for grammar), and rhyme whether you want to or not! Write without worrying about I's or i's, guys. It's a lot more fun!
(The rhyming comment has already been commented on but personally I prefer to write free verse over rhyming)
Anyway, that was particularly long, but thank you all once again for your reviews. I definitely appreciate it, and I will return the favor sometime should I stumble across on of your pieces. Thanks guys!
AGREED
Hello.
It took me awhile to realize why this fell flat for me, and I believe the reason is your sentence structure: it's highly repetitive.
Six stanzas in a row start with "I" or, in the case of the fifth, "but I". The seventh stanza is "you", then the eighth is "there". Therefore, stanzas one through eight begin with subject, verb, object, and as a result you have no musicality in your sentence structure itself. It is a constant dirge of I's and you's and there's, wherein nothing is different except you expanding on yourself, or on others, or on a place.
For me, good poetry takes care in its sentences and plays with them enough that there is some variety in the structure of them itself. You never really get that, because after "there" you go into "as you" and "as I", then once again almost all sentences begin with "I".
To put it bluntly, that's boring. That is using poetry as a study in yourself and not really placing yourself in any larger context, giving us anything but you as the subject. It also makes everything feel the same, because it's all starting the same way and you can look at words on top of each other everywhere.
Pull "I" out of the centre focus. Give us sentences that start with feelings, with the and nouns and verbs and adjectives. A poem can still be about a first person narrator without having every single stanza begin with "I". Then you will have a poem where each stanza is a different and not following the same pattern. As a result, your stanzas will have visual differentiation when you're simply reading the poem, and your eye will begin with something different every time.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Hi there;
Thanks for the review! I see where you're coming from here and I agree that the poem is very focused on the "i" with a particular repetition. It is in no way meant to be a poem reflecting on the greater parts of the world, however. I think, more than anything, it's a self-reflection and realization (on the narrator) of something which is extremely personal and 'i'-based, without consultation of the other parts of the world. I will keep your comments in mind should I choose to rewrite the poem in such a context or to write a more world-based poem in the future. Thank you again!
-Cairo
I think my wording could've been better there... I didn't mean so much as all poems have to be external, but more that poems don't have to focus so much on the subject. In an internal first person story, the "I" becomes implied after awhile; once you've established that it's about a person's feelings, you don't have to bring "I" up again until you change who it's about.
Ie- if you bring up the "you", then you'd bring up the "I" again after you've stopped talking about "you", but you don't need to bring up "I" again until the stanzas are no longer about "I"
In that sense, "wider context" becomes more about breaking the confines of the narrator and letting certain things be implied, which, in turn, makes the poem bigger than simply one person. When reading, we're no longer caught filtering things through the narrator but instead can feel like we are the narrator, because we're not constantly reminded that there is a narrator.
Hi, Cairo. This is Pinkie here for a review.
This poem is very good. I love to say that it is very interesting and lovely to read. I enjoyed this poem very much, good sir. I can see that you has a good touch on here. However, it has some grammar errors on here. You should uppercase the 'i' on this one. Well, this is a first of the nitpick, but I don't need to go on because you already knew the errors. Well, I like to read more from you. Have a nice day!
Good Job and Keep on writing!
Cheers
Your reviewer, Pinkiegirl13.
Just wanted to comment that I think you did a really great job on this piece. Also in my opinion the fact that you chose to leave "i" lowercased just emphasized the message of the piece that the speaker felt that the person they loved was necessary for them to exist.
Again great job! I enjoyed reading it!
-alliyah
I like how everyone keeps commenting that you need to capitalize "i". Everyone needs to read the last line! "i cannot exist without you." The speaker is trying to emphasize that they mean less to themselves than the person they love. If anything "you" should be the only word capitalized in the piece. Keep up the good work Cairo! And capitalize whatever You want to!
Great poem cairo!
You have great potential in poetry but you aren't quite there. Though this piece narrator had some grammatical errors, your thoughts are very clear and the feelings are expressive. No piece is perfect and yours could be after a few light touches.
The narrator should capitalize the word "I" throughout the poem the word is lowercase.
I would like to point out in this stanza has great vocabulary.
The narrator also didn't capitalize the next letter after a punctuation. In a poem it's important to capitalize at least in the beginning of a stanza.
In the fifth to last stanza
The word friend has two apostrophes around it when it needs two quotations marks..."friend".
In the second to last stanza "at least," could be part of the stanza
Other than those critiques great poem and keep writing poetry. Look forward to reviewing more work from you in the future.
To be frank with you, it is okay, just okay but not perfect. I did not find rhyme between the the stanza or verse paragraphs. I suggest you to improve your vocabulary and write this poem again. You have got the talent but you need a lot of improvement. Rhymes between sentences are must for a poet.
Poems don't always need to rhyme between stanzas. Poems are about meaning and feeling. Sure the poem needs improvement and the poet has a lot of talent but poems don't always need to rhyme take Stumbling on through Poetry for example it doesn't rhyme yet it's a very well known poem.
Hi there Don and welcome to YWS! I rarely comment on other people's reviews, I have to point out that rhyme is not necessary to a poem, nor is fancy vocabulary. Both are tools that poets are free to use or not use as they see fit. It's okay to comment on the rhyme scheme or lack thereof, but I suggest finding a specific passage where rhyming would add to the piece rather thank dismissing a poem just because it's free verse. Welcome again and I hope you enjoy the site!
Thanks for commenting back here on my comment. Well I felt that poems become a lot more interesting when rhymes are used; maybe it is just for me then haha.
Anyway I did not mean to disappoint or discourage the poet/writer here.
Thanks for the precious comments. Have a nice day.