It started in my toes
Heat, a burning that came with an edge of love
Pure love, the kind that tastes bitter when you don't chew it right
That tastes sweet when you do
It travelled up my calves, making me numb in the legs
You touched her face the way you touch mine, palm open; heart...open
The heat planted itself in my stomach , burning my insides with rage
You cupped her cheek the way you do mine
Love travelling through pores
I am sorry her face was softer
Flames are licking the depths of my throat
Why haven't you asked how I lost my voice?
The heat is on the insides of my cheek
Why haven't you asked about the blisters on your palms?
I would swallow ice if it got rid of the burn
I almost do
but I remember the easiest way to cool my insides
Shrink myself so that I fit perfectly in your arms
Perfectly in all your open spaces
I'll always let you light a match in my heart
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140,079 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
I'm such a big fan of poetry and this was beautiful. I love this piece so much and I can feel the narrators pain. This was excellent and I look forward to future poetry from you.
Thanks so much
Hia there, Hippyhooddrat!! RagingLive here to do the requested review!
I see there has been some good advice given, so I'll try not to stick to the same guns and will instead focus on other things!
Maybe I'm being too nitpicky here, but this sentence doesn't sound quite right to me. Maybe if we condensed it a bit, it wouldn't sound so spread out. It might even end up a bit more dramatic!
"Heat, a burning sword with an edge of love."
But remember, it's what sounds best to you, so you don't have to copy exactly what I say. Let your decision reflect what you want you poem to say.
Another long line that is a bit hard to read. Luckily, I think we can break this down as well!
"Pure love, it tastes bitter when you don't chew it right."
I think this will help it flow better into the next sentence as well.
Did you mean to say "the blisters on my palms?" because I think that since the narrator is the one with that is 'boiling' then the narrator would be the one with blisters on their palms. It doesn't really make sense to me otherwise.
The ending was very nice, probably my favorite out of the whole poem. I see great improvement in your writing and I hope I'll get to see even more in the months ahead.
Keep writing and keep on smiling!!
~RagingLive
Thanks so much for the feedback. I'll see what I can do about condensing those lines....and No. I meant YOUR palms. Im trying to say that when the same person that is hurting the narrator gets blisters on their palms when they touch the narrator's face. I hope you get what I'm trying to say haha..Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to look at this.
Okay . . . I can kind of see that now. Though I thought that in that part of the poem, the other person was still touching someone else's face. My bad!
Wow! Such a unique idea. Love poetry is written about a lot, but this was a new take on it that I like. The metaphor comparing it to a fire was really good. The poem did a good job of describing how love is painful but lovely at the same time. There is really nothing that I would improve on this poem. I really liked it!
Ooh, I really like this. It's so very intense, and the imagery is amazing. I really only have a few suggestions.
Stanzas
There are a couple places I think you could split it into stanzas, since they're where one idea ends and another begins. I'll point those out for you.
Break between the second and third lines. A period after "her face was softer" would look nice too, but of course what you do with punctuation is up to you.
Break here as well.
You could also make the last line its own separate stanza, since it so nicely wraps up the poem but is also quite different from the lines immediately above it.
Finally, if you don't know how to make stanzas on YWS (because it really can be a pain) this is how: you use "shift+enter" to make a single-spaced line, and just "enter" to make a new stanza. For example:
Love travelling through pores [shift+enter]
I am sorry her face was softer [enter]
Flames are licking the depths of my throat [shift+enter]
[b]Style and Rhythm[/quote]
Overall, I really like the style you have going here. It's very strong, with only a few weak places.
I don't like the second parts of each of these lines here. The comma and the "-ing" form slows it down and doesn't contribute to the tense, angry tone. Using "and" would work better. It just feels more immediate.
For example: "the heat planted itself in my stomach and burned my insides with rage."
The one other thing I'd recommend is to go through and try to take out any unnecessary words. Brevity is always a good thing in poems, and some of your lines are long enough that they start to lose the flow.
And that's all I've got! Thanks for the great read.
This is some seriously good poetry!
Great job!
I liked the choice of words and how the tension slowly grows with every line.
I loved the ending and the great imagery used.
It's amazing how powerful this poem is and there aren't even so many words.
You did indeed a great job.
Congratulations!
Thank you so much
Nice descriptive chose of words there!
Dislike the title though
Woah! Love this. Crazy burst of so much in so few words.
Let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns. I'm not around often but I do come by occasionally to lurk the site.
First of all, can I just say that I love the first line. Beautiful, and you do such a good job of following this feeling up from the toes to the rest of the body while moving the story up as well, starting small but giving us a bigger and bigger picture the further along we read. It was great.
Along with that, I think you could play this up even more. You kind of stopped at the stomach, but I would love to see the image carried through even more. Talk about the heart, maybe the neck, the face. And keep the outside narrative even more specific as well.
You start with the general idea of love, but then went straight into the "you" touching another girl's face. I would like to see this person a little bit first. Who is "you" what is this person like?
Then you can go more into the way they interact with the other woman. And then I love how you end with the going back. it's so powerful and makes me just want to find this narrator and beg them to look at their own poem and turn back and get away from this person who is clearly hurting them.
It's a really good poem and I would love to see it even further developed with some more clear organization and maybe even some more detail to make it seem even more real.
Happy writing.
Thanks so much for the feedback. I didn't change much and I'm probably not done editing but I wanted to implement your idea of keeping it going. What do you think?
Yeah! I like the changes and I think if you wanted to keep this going you definitely have room to add to it. I like the questions you added in.