beige

Salvage.

The first three stanzas have so much narrative potential in them, but they're stripped and showered until all the soil is gone and all that's left is ivory lyricism. So you missed a few marks (though the last lines, you're right, bring you back from the edge). Lots of salvage. What I think you have here is what you explained to Aley: written in a bit and liked because of the ending, but not really TLC'd to the point of adoration that it deserved because of some X factor.

So you're tired. That's the deal. Hurting. Not sure when the hurt stopped and words began. Love it. Let's start there.

Take the coffee. Scene.

Take the spaces you describe and put them into images within narration. Scene.

Do you see the powerful potential for a narrative piece here that I see? Because it's Bernie-Sanders Yuuuuuuge. I'm actually a fan of the aches, though I'd cut one of them out for flowsake definitely. That stanza, too, gives more fodder for scenery--JEEZ WALKER.

The last stanza would be a nice wrap-up to a narrative. Just saying you're tired. Everyone gets that, and those final two lines will sell it, buuuuut:

and it hurts but i'm not sure when the hurt stopped
and the words began.

Hey Dreamwalker,

I'm afraid I'm not as enthusiastic about this as the others, but perhaps that's just because of my perspective differences. I like what you're trying to do. It feels like you're in the right area for poems now a days on the internet. This sounds like other poems I've read.

I like that you're being honest about fears and worries. That makes the poem feel genuine, but I don't really start to experience that until the second stanza. As short as it is, it feels like the most genuine part of the poem. The rest feels like it's trying hard to be something that works well. The first part is a bit oblique, and I'm not sure exactly what some of the things are trying to represent like "liquid mush that pools in the empty bits" what is that? Is that coffee? Is that stew? Soup? Then there's the question of What am "I" in this poem. I don't understand "I'm not really full but at least my joints don't crack" and maybe it's because we've had different experiences, but I feel like it should be something visceral and understandable. Full in what sense? Full of heat? Full/not hungry? How does this connect with the liquid mush because you have "So" in there which means that the liquid mush is making them full, but how? What is the liquid mush? Eating doesn't fill joints, so how do those connect? Those are some of the problems I have with the first stanza.

When you get down to the third stanza I feel like you're starting a new poem. I almost want to take it and put it first because that would give us a better opening than someone complaining about what they don't want to do or hear or see. Opening with a prompt for someone to do something, "ask me..." feels a lot stronger than "I'm tired" because I can pretty much summarize your entire poem with "I'm tired, and unsure of myself" but that wouldn't be much of a poem.

I think you might be able to improve this simply by writing it more. Take this idea, and write it a few times, do a series of poems on this concept, this feeling that you have, and try to do a couple different challenges with it, like not using adjectives, or not using the words "I'm" and "Not" in the poem since you have it so many times in here. Take some time to struggle with this concept and this wording, and find what you really want to say here because I feel like this particular poem is lacking focus. It's talking about depression, or it feels like it is, but it's talking about more than that too, about feeling inadequate, and fears about success. The more you wrestle these subjects into poems, the better you'll get at identifying how you want to talk about them, and the clearer your real message will become.

In other words, my advice is to keep writing, but don't just abandon this idea, keep with it. This poem itself could use some improvement with clarity in the first stanza, but otherwise, it's pretty solid.

This is literally amazing. I can relate to this so much. Good job!

this is so perfect and i just like i'm kind of dying rn because this is everything i've been trying to put down on paper <3 xD this like woah i feel this