Better

Hey there, Splodey! *snugs* I promised you a review and gosh darn it, I’m going to give it to you!...It just took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Right off the bat, nitpicks.

Never ever perfect enough

“Never ever” is a very meh phrase and it’s something very overdone most of the time making it feel a bit unoriginal. If you can’t make it super powerful, I would just try for blending the line in smoothly by using “quite” instead of “ever” or even “fully.” But “ever” just feels weak here.

But yet you do.

“but” and “yet” are very clumsy together and you really only need one.

Touch me with hands made to hold
While mine were made to steal.

Okay, this all and all confuses me because it sort of pops up out of the blue with this talk of hands. I love hands but here in this poem, these two lines feel funny and out of place.


Overall, though, like I mentioned before I like this. You have a wonderful idea centered around taste and the imagery is lovely. You don’t overdo it and the voice is very strongly identifiable as yours. Those nitpicks I pointed out are all just me being, well, pickie, so don’t worry much. You have a lovely poem here, Splodey and I’m glad you asked me to review it!

*snugs*

Hey Splodey. As requested.

You've drowned your poem from the first line. And it just keeps sinking as we continue.

"You complete me when you destroy me" is a weak stab at trying to be artsy and lovey-dovey. 1. It doesn't make sense. 2. What in the world does it mean in context? The subject of your poem needs to be in pieces to be whole? A shattered ball of glass is not whole if it's shattered. It's shattered, attempting to be artsy with a contradiction is not artsy, it's confusing.

When I tear myself apart
To exterminate the person
You wouldn’t want me to be.

Changing yourself for someone for the sake of pained love and morphing to another's ideals. Boy, I've never heard that one before. Your language makes it difficult to read, and the line breaks moreso.

When I tear myself apart ----------------------------------------------to exterminate the person -------------------------- you....

Those two breaks interrupt whatever flow we had reading the poem because you've cut it at a place that's unnatural for me to pause at when reading. The breaks have to work with the reader, carry them from line to line. If the reader has to fight through every line it makes it all the more difficult and unpleasant to read. And generally the concept of "changing yourself for X and Y because I lav them as painful as it is" is nothing new and interesting for me to follow. Specifically since you've openly stated it right at the beginning, I'm left with nothing to really think about. You're telling me x and y in this poem but I'm not feeling anymore sympathy for you than I did when I came in. Because you're stating it and describing the statement. It's not making me see or feel or hear the scene, rather I'm being told about this scene. It's the difference between seeing a painting and having a painting described to us. Which is more effective? The former of course.

Peeling this skin
Like a bruised old apple,
Never ever perfect enough
For you to like the taste of.
But yet you do.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The whole old apple, peeling skin image. Alright sure. But then the next three lines. The old, bruised apple is not perfect enough to appease the taste buds of X yet they do. What? They do what, taste it? Think they're perfect? I'm confused.

You see me with eyes I wish I had,
Touch me with hands made to hold
While mine were made to steal.
You make me want to be better
So I can like how I taste too.

Two cliched lines followed by all of a sudden hands made to steal? Steal what? Why is stealing suddenly introduced. It is followed a line by "You make me want to be better" while through the entire poem it was implied through your tone that the transformation of yourself was a bad thing. And suddenly introducing stealing into your train of though right at the end makes the message soggy and ineffective. Conclusions to poetry tend to be the most effective when it threads together everything from beginning to end. Same in most writing really. Introducing a new idea isn't a conclusion it's the introduction of a new idea.

Best of luck,

Kamas