Exhume

by Cale

Try to do as I say
As I say it.

Breathe in, hold. Breathe in,
Exhale. Empty your lungs, and now empty them again.

Take in all the air you possibly can and hold it in as I say this.

Even when the fog on the road
Completely blinded us, we kept holding to the stupidity
We once called love. Maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, we will
Never know. All we did was act like what we were, instead of who
We should have been.
Who are we supposed to be?

Exhale. Breathe, but only for a few seconds.
Now inhale, take all the air around you in.
Make sure your body feels as if it’s about to burst,
And hold that feeling. Just for a minute.

Exhale. Exhale. Exhale.
You have nothing. You are but flesh hiding bone.
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.
You have everything. The gold stones you kept in pockets,
Just to weigh you underwater. Breathe, once again.

Comments & reviews · 13
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User avatar
TheWalkinDude
Review

Hm, this is very interesting. I've never read a poem that actually seemed to have a bit of a hypnotic trance upon the reader. It's actually a pretty cool concept, I think. Of course, as far as understanding the piece, I did not. I think the part where you started saying things besides just breathing exercises could be dispersed throughout the entire poem, kind of a way to give a breathing break or something. Also so then that one stanza doesn't seem so random and out of left field.

User avatar
Button
Review
Button wrote a review · Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:28 pm

This was really interesting- I think that I would try to incorporate more of the breathing emotions wise with your figurative language and everything in the fourth stanza- that's where I felt like the meat of the poem was.
Also, the lines breaks where you were continuing and sentence but then capitalized the next line felt a bit awkward to me. Most people don't have a style like that- they either start a new line at the end of a sentence type thing and have a comma at the end of each line, but you kind of incorporated the sentence-punctuation with the capitalization of each line and it was kind of jarring in parts, especially when the breathing was so peaceful. Just my opinion though.

Great piece altogether- very refreshing. Looking forward to reading more from you. :)

-Coral-

User avatar
BenFranks
Review

I like this poem and the way you control your readers. It's pretty original and I like the pace. However, I do have a couple of nitpicks:

Completely blinded us, we kept holding on to the stupidity

This sounds better, because without it the flow is disrupted.

Who are were we supposed to be?

Keep your tenses consistent.

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale[full stop - consistency]
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.

I don't know what the effect intended is of this, but it would sound a lot better if you just used the first line because with both lines it just seems a little too dragged out and repetitive.

Hope that this helps,
Ben

User avatar
rememberme
Review

So, here's what I think, this poem is astonishing. It makes me feel like I'm the person your telling to breathe. When you say exhale I exhale, when you say inhale, I inhale. This poem is so good and has so much feeling and people are drawn to it. You have extreme talent and I look forward to seeing all of your work soon(:.

User avatar
Caerulean
Review

Maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, we will

- I suggest putting a comma after 'Maybe it was', or maybe a period.

I noticed a few other missing punctuations but I guess, they're not really a problem. xD I like this poem and the 'drama' in it. Although, at first, I didn't get the point of it. Maybe, it was because I didn't take the poem in while I was reading it.

Nice job. :)

Random avatar
poet
Comment

Hah, wow. This is the first time I've ever seen something like this. I love how you integrated therapeutic breathing with poetry. Brilliant to say the least.

User avatar
Eniarrol
Comment

Nice one!
Would love to hear more :)

User avatar
foreveralone
Comment

I Love this one :D
For some reason , I actually started inhaling and exhaling xD

Random avatar
GoaGreena
Comment

Brilliant! I love this piece, no spelling or grammar errors at all. Breath-taking. ;)

User avatar
ziggiefred
Review

Hello there and welcome to YWS! :)

Try to do as I say
As I say it.
Clever!

Well I'm going to be a little negative. It was a very convincing piece in terms of the inhaling and exhaling parts because I actually found myself playing along. However, I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe it's just me and I'm not thinking out of the box. I will give you points for your eloquent use of the language. I noticed that some phrases were assembled quite cleverly.
Keep writing...and posting.
Good luck

User avatar
MidNightBlue Comment

I tried it me breathing in and breathing out it was so how peacful to my mind. No errors it was as if you were reading of souls it touched me. I think this poem couldn't get any better as it is now.
-MidNight

Random avatar
Stephene
Review

Cale wrote:Try to do as I say
As I say it.

Breathe in, hold. Breathe in,
Exhale. Empty your lungs, and now empty them again.

Take in all the air you possibly can and hold it in as I say this.

Even when the fog on the road
Completely blinded us, we kept holding to the stupidity
We once called love. Maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, we will
Never know. All we did was act like what we were, instead of who
We should have been.
Who are we supposed to be?

Exhale. Breathe, but only for a few seconds.
Now inhale, take all the air around you in.
Make sure your body feels as if it’s about to burst,
And hold that feeling. Just for a minute.

Exhale. Exhale. Exhale.
You have nothing. You are but flesh hiding bone.
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.
You have everything. The gold stones you kept in pockets,
Just to weigh you underwater. Breathe, once again.


i actually did this and frankly i found this VERY interesting, no such grammar or spelling mistakes either
fantastic piece of work i'd even try this twice or even more as think exercises like these relieve tension and its even better if they are expressed in a poetic and interesting way ill give you a 4/5 stars my friend.

Hope i helped

Yours truly
- Stephene

p.s do you think i can feature this in my blog with your name on it ? just asking tough its ok if you don't want me to :)



Courage, my soul! Now learn to wield the weight of thine immortal shield...
— Andrew Marvell