z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

Vanilla

by EKK15


You smell of vanilla if I recall.

An elegant, sweet fragrance, basked in ease.

But nothing about you is that simple;

You’re explosive as cinnamon,

As strong as the coffee brewing on the counter behind me,

With a hint of citrus, your added mystery.

     

Then why, dear, do you mask yourself in vanilla?

It makes you easy to fall into,

It makes you attractive

So that you can lure your prey in

And feast on their incomplete hearts.

You checked your baggage at the door...

For now, until you get your heart broken.

    

I was wandering down the road the other night,

The one with the ocean calmly creeping up

On my right side, and the little seaside stores on my left,

And for a moment I wished you were holding my hand.

I smelt vanilla and thought of you,

And when it went away, I was left with the bitter aroma

Of burnt toast.

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Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:24 pm
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Mathy wrote a review...



Hey there! It's ZeldaIsShiek here to review another quintessential piece of literature that made my day and win this Review Day by helping the Red Pandas stay in first place and reaching my goal of 80 reviews. I might even get to 100, if I work hard enough. I am really excited to review this amazing piece of art that you have created, and maybe add some witty humor as well. Anyway, that's enough idle chatter from me. Let's get into the review.

Italicized = My interpretation of the line
Bolded = Spelling mistake
Strikethrough = Remove
Underline = Add imagery/descriptive words

Spoiler! :
You smell of vanilla if I recall.
They seem plain and attractive on the outside.
An elegant, sweet fragrance, basked in ease.

But nothing about you is that simple;

You’re explosive as cinnamon,
When you get to know them, they are more extreme than they first appear.
As strong as the coffee brewing on the counter behind me,

With a hint of citrus, your added mystery.



Then why, dear, do you mask yourself in vanilla?

It makes you easy to fall into,

It makes you attractive

So that you can lure your prey in
This person uses sweetness to lure people in, but then they reveal their true selves and their 'prey' are hurt deeply.
And feast on their incomplete hearts.

You checked your baggage at the door...

For now, until you get your heart broken.
They will one day pay for their actions.


I was wandering down the road the other night,

The one with the ocean calmly creeping up

On my right side, and the little seaside stores on my left,

And for a moment I wished you were holding my hand.

I smelt vanilla and thought of you,

And when it went away, I was left with the bitter aroma

Of burnt toast.
You are attracted to their outward appearance and their public vanilla flavour once again until you remember what she was really like and ignored your urges.




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Sun Jul 30, 2017 11:22 pm
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alliyah wrote a review...



Just a few thoughts here for review day,

It's really interesting that you were able to construct an entire poem around the sense of smell. This is rarely done in poetry, so I commend that you took an unusual route here.

A few small grammatical notes:
"But nothing about you is that simple;" ---> I think you meant "not that simple".

These two lines don't quite make sense for me:

"You checked your baggage at the door...

For now, until you get your heart broken."

I don't see the connection between the two lines, maybe the "for now" is unneeded?

Now back to the concept of the smell -- while I like the ways you were able to develop smell into more full out characterization, for some reason I find it a bit creepy that the only think they remember about this subject is their smell and "attractiveness"... it doesn't make the speaker a very sympathetic character. If you're just trying to convey a skin deep (or in this case air deep) relationship then this worked, but if you want to convey a more emotional/full loss there certainly needs to be some aspect of that developed too. This could still go back to the scent, but could be a bit more characterization of the subject of the poem.

I'll also say this ending seems sort of like a throw-away. I'm not sure if the burnt toast was in there for the humorous effect, but for me "toast" is just so random at the end it completely makes me forget the preceding subject. I would change the noun to something a bit less random because toast, unless you're going for a humorous piece.

Anyways, nice job on this piece and please let me know if you had any questions about my review!

~alliyah




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Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:32 am
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InfiniteRectangles wrote a review...



This review is brought to you by InfiniteRectangles

Hello, InfiniteRectangles here with a review for you!

This will be a short review because I don't have much to say about your poem. I love it! I was a little confused the first time I read it but then I read it through again and I think I understand. I'm assuming this poem is about a person who isn't really a good person. Unless I'm reading that wrong. Anyway, I like how you use different smells in the first stanza to describe the person.

You checked your baggage at the door...

For now, until you get your heart broken.

This is the only thing that really stood out to me. It doesn't really flow well with the rest of the poem, and it seems a bit out of place. You were so descriptive about how the person uses vanilla to lure in their prey and then out of nowhere you start talking about baggage. I'm not saying it's wrong, it just threw me off a little bit.

Okay, that's it for this review! Overall I think this was an excellent poem and I enjoyed reading it. Keep writing and have a wonderful day/night!




EKK15 says...


You understood perfectly! Its about seeing someone for who they really are (not good) after being stuck with a fake idea of them.



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Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:00 am
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Halfbloodcheetah wrote a review...



Ah! Good day! My name is HBC and I am your reviewer tonight! This poem is interesting. I came into this poem slightly confused so as you read this, know that I am writing as I read it over again.

The person the poem is about seems to be hiding behind the fragrance of vanilla, but then I see that you are comparing the persons other attributes are described as other flavors like citrus and cinnamon. And then the writer questions the person about why they mask themselves in vanilla. And now I am starting to get the impression that the person the writer is talking about is not a very good person, especially with the use of words like feast, prey, broken.

Then the next paragraph the writer is taking a walk and smells vanilla and immediately thinks of the person the poem is about. But the fade of that vanilla scent to burnt toast gives me the sense that the thought of the person that left a bad impression on the writer and it seems like its for good reason.

Anyway. I hope you liked this review, because I liked this poem! :D Have a wonderful day!





I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
— William Shakespeare