i'll cut my hair as a sacrifice; i learned that love never comes without a loss

This is concise and nice I love it

hey there! :]

I've always enjoyed the theme of impermanence in poetry, and it is really intriguing when juxtaposed with the real-life implications of growing up. The narrator seems stuck in a transient state, e.g. their continuous marking of days on the calendar, paired with tending to dying flowers, reflects their struggle against understanding / reconciling with their impermanence. Growing up has always scared me as well--especially since adulthood is so exaggerated--and this poem really shows how stuck the narrator is within their ways / what they know as true. The very domestic and mundane acts show that even further, and that is really realistic imagery since it's so commonly understood by so many people.

The mundanity does feel repetitive though; the cooling coffee and the marking of the calendar is relatable, but I feel that the accumulation of similar domestic actions can become redundant over time. If the narrator is feeling stuck in their youth / almost rejecting the act of moving in time, that could personify itself in other ways besides these very banal images. That could be one half of who they are, but the narrator exists in a plane beyond these simple rituals. I would've loved to see expansion on the other figure as the other reviewer mentioned for this reason as well, since it could expand on *who* the narrator is without this framing. I could understand if it is purposefully vague, but it feels more natural to explain in subtext.

There’s potential to deepen the contrast between private and public self in general, especially since the 'missed signals' monologue feels rich yet underexplored. I am picking up on the idea that the narrator is having issues in social contexts because of their fear / alienation from the feeling of moving on and possibly changing. Their friends could pick up on that--especially if they are close, which it feels--and it would open up the narrative to shift into something more emotionally vulnerable on the idea of growing apart. I'd suggest to expand on what the missed signals are in reference to, and you could write about how they change the perspective of the narrator / those around them. Time passing changes everyone, either for worse or for better, and that is the theme after all; everyone goes through this eventually.

I hope this helps!

lina

Hi LadyBug!

Exploring the idea of the passage of time through love/loss is powerful. Coffee getting cold, flowers dying, cutting hair. I think they're all great images of how time never stops and things do eventually come to an end (or at the very least, change). The selection of imagery all pinpoints exactly the message I think you're getting across.

𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴,