Stars cut through her skin like a knife,
Sticking into her lungs and puncturing her heart.
Blood is the ocean she lives in, forever isolated.
The dark cloud that covers her face shatters her eyes,
A navy blue darkness overshadows her sunshine.
And when she looks up at those twinkling lights hung in the heavens,
She envies the beauty people appreciate more when they steal a chance to see it.
*
Sitting in an empty library chair surrounded by people plugged in,
He opens a book, turning the pages, yearning for something.
Sleepless nights are the classrooms he sits in, forever confused.
He is walking on pencil tips, pushing them into his passion with narrowed eyes.
They sit in groups of laughter, spit balling regret into his ears.
And when he looks at the empty, squirming words,
He envies the friendships people make so easily.
*
If the hopeless do meet one another at one desperate point in their lives,
Would they become companions and comfort one another?
Or mistake the other for another haunting soul that ruins their hearts?
I scribble these questions into a spiral bound notebook that pierces my thumbs,
And mocks the solidarity that I have created for myself.
I regret not picking the marble composition book.
They are less painful,
Yet they are more typical
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139,345 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
Hi writer! I'm here to try a little review of your lovely poem.
Grammar/Word Choice
First with grammar, I'm sure you've been told a million times, "You don't have to begin each line with a capital letter"... but at the same time feel free to if you want to, it's your poem. I don't know if it's something you normally do, but I would consider how the capital letters effect the poem as a whole. In my opinion it makes it clean and consistent, but then you also end up sacrificing flow a little bit, and each line is read more distinctly, this is especially true where you have a contraction beginning after a comma like in the last line and when you begin with an "And" it really breaks up the thought.
Now for word choice. You did a good job picking a tone and then sticking the whole poem through with words that fit that tone. I did feel though that some lines got quite wordy. My personal preference for poems are nice even shortish lines, so I may be biased in this.
Those lines especially 2nd and 3rd stanza just get so long, and I think it waters down the lines for them to be so long. My suggestion would be at least for the 2nd stanza maybe consider breaking up the lines a little and then splitting into two stanzas so that one is about "He" and one is about the "they" and his reaction to them.
I think the italics question lines could be clearer too. You repeat the word "another" 3 times in the course of 3 lines. It could be shortened to something like:
"If the hopeless meet in desperation,
would they bring comfort?
or mistake a friend for just a haunting soul"
I love the word play of "twinkling lights hung in the heavens" like they are being hanged to death or executed themselves.
Content/Other Suggestions
First thing I notice about this poem is that there are a lot of contradicting sort of mixed metaphors. And it seems like this was intentional, but it is slightly confusing and sort of makes the reader dance across your ideas without really getting a super detailed picture. It's a poem that really creates a clear mood though.
The first opening metaphor is beautiful but I get really lost in it. Are the "stars cutting skin" and the "blood is the ocean" a reference to cutting? It's very dark, but almost equally as confusing, sort of like a nightmare that you don't quite remember.
This line has issues for me "She envies the beauty people appreciate more when they steal a chance to see it." I don't understand it, and I'm not sure if it was intentionally written without a line break so it could be read "she envies the beautiful people & appreciates them more when they steal a chance to see beauty" or "she envies beauty that people appreciate when the people steal the chance to see beauty"... it's a little long it makes me pause to question clarity before going to the next stanza.
Also very interesting choice to use punctuation on every line but the last. Meaning... the story is not over yet, there's more to write! Clever use of punctuation.
Meaning/Overall Impressions
My interpretation of the meaning is that you or the speaker is writing characters, and maybe gets wrapped up in their world, and feels like the story continues beyond the written pages and questions what happens beyond the story. The line "And mocks the solidarity that I have created for myself" really speaks to this interpretation. I love it, like how authors write stories to comfort themselves with bits of themselves in characters so how ironic to question what would happen when two desperate people meet, I mean we're author's ... we can create the scenario! and we do when we create the desperate people by writing them our selves. Last two lines are great two.
Or alternative meaning maybe the reference to the "spiral bound notebook" is like a diary entry and but the poem encompasses more than just one person's feelings so, not really sure how it all connects.
I see the framework and feel the emotion, but not sure I can pick out the full story in this poem. (Which can be okay because it keeps the reader guessing, but then again you may want to clarify how this all connects)...
The title is a little bit of a mystery to me too. To me "observations" are very random bits of information thrown together with a little bit of analysis, but that hardly encompasses this dark desperate mood that you have in the poem. I almost feel like their should be an adjective before "observations" in the title.. not sure what that adjective would be, but just a thought.
Good writing Writer and keep up the written work!
Alliyah
Thank you so much Alliyah! This really helped. I do need to stop capitalizing every line XD good interpretations as well! I wasn't sure what the title should be, so I'll work on it ^^
I'll work on all you mentioned (when I have free time)
Thank you!
Wow, a great piece of work. Though a little dark for my taste, this particular poem exhibited some of the finest use of words and feelings that could be put on paper. (Or at least on a website.) Keep writing like this. It's definitely an interesting piece to read and I hope to see more out of you in the future.
This is a very good poem! Keep it up! I really like how you let the reader decide what it's about. It really lets the imagination flow! I like how you connected the introduced stanzas in the third stanza. This poem really got me thinking. I loved it! This is a great price of work, I would love to see more like it.
Wow... Amazing piece of work you have here! I love the three different stanzas, how you introduced the two characters, then tied it all up with a third. I have to say, I'm not quite sure what the answer to the question would be, hopefully they would help each other, but, you never know, am I right? I love all of the figurative language you put into this, making it that much more descriptive and fun to read. You're a great writer! I didn't see any mistakes in this, as I know that the not-so-exact sentences were done purposely, and I have to say, I think this was done perfectly. This is just beautiful, I tell you! Bravo! Thanks for writing, and have a great day!
Love,
Perks