What Sustains You

by IamFlamingo

Published October 27, 2012

You are held prisoner by what sustains you,
Like a fish who can’t leave its tank.
You swim—
Wiggle your little fins
Until you reach the glass
But your face pushes against it. 
You can’t move;
You’re stuck. 
Suffocating. 
You’re pushed
Harder and harder
Until you think your
Neck is about to break.
But the glass breaks first,
And all the water spills out. 
You flop on the ground, gape and gasp for water,
The pieces of glass may cut you,
But then you realize, 
You have legs. 
You were never a fish.
You breathe air.
Comments & reviews · 2
writingismylife wrote a review Review · Oct 28, 2012

Very good! It has good sentiment and meaning and flows well to the tongue. I am impressed! I feel I can relate to it. It's so hard to find poems that are so whole like yours is. You should be proud. I love the simile you used with the fish. Very inventive and imaginative. You used good imagery too. Some people go over the top and ruin the flow and others don't do enough description and ruin the affect, but you've got it just right! It's brilliant!

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goldenrebel
Review
goldenrebel wrote a review Review · Oct 27, 2012

Nice poem, I can understand the meaning of it. Your broke up the stanzas well, it flowed along smoothly as I read it and was easy to understand. I like how you compared the fish to a prisoner. I don't see much grammatical errors except for the endings you put at each stanza. I don't know if you have to but I never put a comm or period at the end of mine. Overall I'd give it a 4/5.



Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
— Noam Chomsky