in your absence

okay so i was a mess before reading this but this definitely didn't help jeez Iggy thanks for the feels trip. smh <3 (why you gotta be such a great poet?)

This is Nikayla here for a review!

I don't think I've ever happened to tackle your poetry before, so let's jump right into the review. So there's not really a "first stanza" to this poem, because, well, there's only one stanza. I think if you broke this poem up into different stanzas rather than it forming to be a large blob or block of text would be beneficial for the fact that it's easier to read and for the fact that it'll have a stronger structure with one.

There's a lack of punctuation in this poem that I don't necessarily mind, but I do think the flow would become stronger if you decided to use it in more places, even if it's just the usage of commas. It helps keep the poem going and it helps the reader understand where they're to start and stop when they're reading the poem.

As for the content, there was a focus on this poem with it's imagery, but at the same time, there wasn't. There's this overview-feel of the poem where there's a lot of anatomy and body imagery used throughout it, but it never really gets pinpointed down. I wanted more of the atmosphere around the speaker rather than them just describing this significant other as well as the love they had. It's fine to do this to an extent, but over time it becomes navel-gazing in the sense that the poem is too drenched in itself to think of other things.

I'm going to drop a link about navel-gazing that I've always found to be helpful: Navel-gazing Navel-gazing in itself often clogs up the poem's flow in that it happens to use a lot of "my"s and "me"s and "you"s. I'm not saying that your poem is the worst case of this, because it isn't, but I am suggesting that you add more into the poem that tackles something more than just this relationship between the speaker and 'you'.

You start to do this with the bed and the coffee, but I would like to see more description and imagery of how the house is sort of empty without this other person. The poem doesn't do a whole lot new in terms of romance, and it doesn't need to. The imagery that you have here works, getting the message across that was intended to be gotten across. I'm not a large fan of the imagery of teeth and belonging to someone here because it feels a little toxic, but I'm sure that wasn't the way it's meant to be. Overall, it works for what it is, though I would like a bit less focus on body imagery since it seems to be the only thing in the poem and it floods it in a sense, but that could have been intentional on your side.

Since you asked for some examples of the flow not really working in a comment on another review, I'll go ahead and do that here:

i wrap myself in your coat and i lie still,
and give soft inhales, and i will wait
for your strong hands to reel me back in

the fading fingerprints on my skin burn
and i ache for the pressure of your arms
around my chest and your teeth on my throat

i remember the way you sank your claws into me
curling around my heart and squeezing,
of when you kissed my parted lips,

I just feel like I was singing a song. XD

Hello there. I hope to give a fair review. And hope that it is helpful.

First of all I would say that I haven't reviewed anything like this yet, so I am not so sure about the review. Also, if you haven't given at least a 13+ rating you should do it as soon as possible.

First I will come on something common which many people don't care about (I still can't figure out why this happens)— punctuation. It's not like your poem was difficult to understand without it, but few correct punctuation marks bring out the correct flow. Also, sometimes lack of punctuation causes confusion. You should try and use them more often. I really liked this line — 'and your breath tangling in my hair' (even though I am not a girl). This line was beautifully phrased. But then these lines — 'curling around my heart and squeezing,
of when you kissed my parted lips, your voice
sliding down my throat like syrup' . I am really confused on what 'squeezing' means here. Have you referred to 'heart being squeezed' here? The line which follows it has the word 'of' as the first word, creating even more confusion. In the line next to this line, what is the meaning of 'voice sliding down the throat means'? Does it signify him speaking while kissing, or something like that? But the upcoming lines are beautiful— 'the fading fingerprints on my skin burn
and i ache for the pressure of your arms'. Very beautiful lines.

'and i fix you a cup of coffee every morning
and when it gets cold, i dip my tongue inside
to remember the taste of your lips'. For these lines I have mixed feelings. While I loved the first of these lines, I didn't get the use of 'tongue' here. It really feels awkward (dipping tongue in a beverage?). But then the following line is so beautiful that I forget the 'tongue' and understand the true beauty of these lines. Real good solid work. I have not much to talk about other lines. Simple and giving the meaning which you must have had wanted them to convey. One last thing though— 'i wrap myself in your coat and i lie still,' I don't know why I feel that 'lay' might be better than 'lie'. Overall, a good work. It's not just not my genre. Sorry. Keep it up!!!!!

Hey there! LadyShadows coming to review!

I liked this poem. It was sweet and real. It was also filled with imagery, which I look for most of the times. Imagery gives literature a deeply painted picture, and this gave me vivid pictures indeed. It also had emotion, and emotion is another thing I look for, being the human nature. The emotion was placed wonderfully in this poem. That's what I have to say about the poem as a whole. However...

You had written it out well, but do be careful of the flow. Some parts of the poem was very wordy or sometimes the words kind of 'collided' with each other. I may or may not need to edit for a demonstration, but please be careful, like said. I cannot stress it enough, because the human mind likes flow, and some times when flow stops, the mind can lose concentration and they sometimes stop reading something because of that.

However it's not just you that has that problem. Many people do, and sometimes I do it too. whether or not I use a wrong synonym or lack flow or something else. That's what helps us grow as writers. Like artists, we only get better everyday, and we won't know the power of word magic but only harness it. Keep writing.