i have cracks all along my spine
a mark for every time i stood up
after a night that broke my back
and shattered my rib cage.
you run your fingers over them,
when I'm angry and you're trying to calm me down
you say, here's to never pulling the trigger, darling.
here's to making it out alive.
but lately my medicine cabinet is full of bullets
and my mind full of clouds i can't catch
even though i try and try.
i just want something to lie down on,
but i've yet to find a bed soft enough to keep the monsters away.
i don't want to make it out alive.
you tell me that recovery is taking your pills and watching the days count backwards,
watching the days where the sun burns my skin become fewer and fewer.
but i say recovery is waiting for your body to starve for so long
that it stops fighting you back.
i say it's waiting for the fire in your brain to singe off your eyelashes,
so there's nothing left to catch your tears.
i say recovery is wondering why history is written by the winners,
and why i'm not brave enough to take my crown back.
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138,349 Literary Works • 672,108 Reviews
hey ladyspark!
criticisms -
The first three lines are a bit strange, you say the cracks are not from breaking your back but from standing up the day after? Then the last line talks about how you also shattered your spine which puts this exaggeration bit a little off the edge for me- I think you already made your point and try to add emotion to it by adding that last part but it's still falling flat and doing nothing for you.
Now you have the twisted metaphor that makes your reader think you are a hard worker - not suicidal and I again question if you have too much exaggeration going on. Why would a hard worker ever think about killing them-self?
again a little weak with language/literary techniques - why would having a soft bed keep the monsters away? I know this can be interpreted as having nightmares but you could have the softest bed in the world and wake up to nightmares all the time.
what I liked -
Even though I don't think the mood is right in the first stanza, I like how over the top the ends get - you kinda get into the mind of a crazy person, but you haven't went far enough -to really get into someones head try reading the tell tale heart by Poe - I wish some of that was in this. Right now, it seems like a teenager thing where they are just obsessed with depression and killing themselves as a matter of a fad- you need to differentiate more from that fad if you want this to be really superb.
Thank you, darling! Wonderful review <3
This. <333
Hey LadySpark,
your writing is beautiful, and its awesome. i really liked your thought and the way you built the story up.
at first i was quite confused about the theme but this quite evident when i reached the end. i hardly see many flaws in this apart from some punctuation errors. however i suggest some change in just one line-
''and my mind full of clouds i can't catch''- perhaps here you could use " reach" in place of catch.
while you described well about your present condition at the start, may be you could also tell something about it at the end. well this is just a thought and you have a better hand in thinking whether it might me appropriate or not.
i really loved this line-
"i say recovery is wondering why history is written by the winners,
and why i'm not brave enough to take my crown back. "
just one last suggestion- keep writing no matter what hurdles you face or how busy you are as this is what can define you.
enjoy YWSing
Rituparna.
I really liked this poem! <3 I've had a few serious injuries and can relate to it pretty well.
Hello there, fellow Spark! I honestly can't wait to review this. It's beautiful and brilliant and... well, let's just get started, shall we?
Ready? Set? Go!
Introduction:
So, as I was saying... you're a much better writer than I am and unbelievably gifted. I enjoy and empathize with every single one of your poems, but I have to tell you that my favorite keeps changing: every single one is better and more beautiful than the last. So, on that note, I'm just going to point out a few things to make your poem more concise, etc., and also some stuff that I loved.
Suggestions:
All I have to suggest is that you change two words to make a bit more sense/give the reader a more powerful image. Firstly, instead of "all along" I'd try "splintering down" or, for less radical image, simply "all down". Secondly, I suggest that you use a more powerful word than "mark". I love this metaphor (Metaphor? Analogy? Who knows?), and I'd make full use of this here by using a work like "fracture".
It's not immediately really clear what "them" is in this phrase. *cringes because I'm very, very nitpicky* Do with that information what you will... I don't want to suggest too many radical changes here.
My only punctuation suggestion... really! I promise I wouldn't bring this up if you didn't use punctuation mid-line on at least one other occasion--this would be a bit more clear if it was "and my mind,full of clouds i can't catch".
This is a bit of a complex sentence, and I think you may have made a small error here in the second line. Did you mean something along the lines of "the days where the sun burns my skin become fewer and fewer"? I love the track that you were going on, and I don't want to presume that much, so I'll leave it be.
Unnecessary "you" here, especially because "it" is referring to your body.
Let me just stop for a second before my suggestion and think about that line. It's really so eloquent and beautiful and thought-provoking... wow. Anyway. I'd suggest changing your "singe off", which is a bit awkward, to just "singe" or, for a more radical approach, "engulf", "burn", etc.
4 Things That I Loved
Well, I've never done this before, but I think that I may be doing this in all my reviews now. What do you think? All I know is that most pieces don't have so many beautiful phrases/ideas to choose from.
Anyway... let's look at them!
1.
This metaphor. Really. This is truly beautiful and original and so well included in this piece. It's truly brilliant.
2.
I love this line because of how natural its cadence is. With just--count them--13 words, you transmit such innocence, such sorrow, and such finality, that (to use internet parlance) I can't bring myself to even.
3.
What are you, some sort of genie? This line is extraordinary, using such a strong metaphor and pure cadence that we, as readers, can't help but empathize with you.
4.
This phrase captures your mastery of repetition so well. You truly have a powerful voice as a writer, and I love reading your poems.
Resources:
Below, I've just outlined a few resources for you to consult in the future. Maybe they'll help you, maybe they won't--I just hope that the former is true.
- A short piece by @barefootrunner: Kiss My Assonance - 5 ways to improve your poetry. I found it (and continue to find it) infinitely helpful and interesting.
- @Aley is a genius in this awesome piece about capitalization in poetry: Capitalization in Poetry
- You may find this interesting--I mean, you don't need it, but I think it's pretty helpful/cool.
ABC's of Punctuation in Poetry
- Finally, a piece by @Emerson about writing emotional poetry. I think that this could potentially be helpful to you, going forward. Emotional Poetry
Wrap-up:
Look, I only have one thing to say to you right now: thank you. Thank you for creating and, most of all, sharing your writing with the world. You really have a gift and it's very, very kind of you to share it with all of us. So thanks. Really.
Keep writing and--as we say in my hometown--don't forget to be awesome.
IronSpark
<3333
This was beautiful, spark.
As I'm on a review hike, I'm going to do my best to try to review this.
It's interesting, all the lines that you've posted on your wall, I read them in your poem, and my heart kept thinking "wow, this is so cool! It's so familiar! It's like Spark read my mind!" and then my brain is like "that's because she wrote the things, you doofus." But I still think it's a good strategy you used. Whether you're using it strategically or not.
Not to mention that you're really good at picking out good lines. I love all the lines that you posted on your wall especially in this poem.
I like your title, it drew me in. Your first line did the same.
I did get a little lost in the first couple lines, and I think that could be remedied by putting a comma or something at the end of the first line, just so I know to pause there, because my brain didn't pause there the first two times I tried to read it. I think something else that's contributing to this lost feeling is saying "a night" rather than "the night" as I would expect. Times when you are severely injured are generally referred to as "the," although I can see why you said "a," as if it had happened over and over again. Just know that that tiny word choice there was throwing off my balance a bit.
by this time, there have been so many nouns, the reader has to go back (again!) to figure out what antecedent you might be referring to. It's not hard to figure out, but it's even more rereading, that really slows the reader down in a bad way.
The soft bed/monsters line seemed to be verging on cliche to me, as did the mind full of clouds part (to a lesser degree). Neither is outright cliche, but I worry that putting them together is toeing the line a bit. Or I just have no idea what is actually cliche. Don't worry about it too much unless you slightly agree.
I feel like "i don't want to make it out alive." is in a weird place in the poem. I feel like it should be either earlier or later.
I was nodding along with this until I got to "are fewer and fewer." There's something grammatically wrong about this that's bothering me. Read it out loud. If you meant to do it, sorry, but it reads really weird to me.
It took me a while to realize that this is where you're defining "recovery," as you alluded to in the title. I thought the "you" here was the "you" character in the poem, not the "implied me" sort of "you." if that makes any sense whatsoever. So obviously with this pronoun confusion (unless of course you wanted that), you should change a pronoun or two. I think you should change the definition pronouns to "one" so it would read
etc.
But if you think that sounds awkward, try it another way. ^^
Also "nothing left to catch your tears" is verging on cliche again.
I keep reading "i say recovery is wondering why history is written by the winners,"
as "i say recovery is wondering why history is written backwards by the winners,"
And I don't know why I read that, but I like it a lot, I'd thought I'd share. Also with that line, I think the "defining recovery" theme has been enforced enough already, and it doesn't really make sense to me here, in conjunction to history. I think you could easily just say "I'm wondering why history..."
The last line is perfect~
I really like this poem and all the emotion within it. The images are solid and the theme was consistent.
Quality work, sparks. c:
I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions!
Keep writing!
~fort
<333 thank you darling! Wonderful wonderful review!