i like to pretend i can sleep when i watch you.
i’ve counted your freckles at least six times tonight. they lie in a pattern unlike anything i’ve ever seen before, and they write stories that keep me up at night.
everytime i want to sleep the monsters crawl out from behind my eyelashes.
you handed me a bag of bones and told me to shake them when i got tired, but you didn't know they whispered to me and told me everything you say is a lie.
i don't love you. i breathe you.
the patterns on your bedroom ceiling are dangerous and i don’t know what to do with my hands, you don’t like to be touched. they float above my body and i run my fingers across my hips just to see what it would feel like--and i pretend they’re your bones caressing mine.
you think i'm dirty and no matter how many times i bleach my lips you won't kiss me.
you’re in every part of my life--but i never see me in yours. your underwear hangs on the back of my chair where you threw it, but you always make sure i take mine home to be washed.
i find you everywhere you're not supposed to be.
your freckles are a maze i can’t follow, your dead ends are haunted by monsters. i can hear your sighs of frustration and i’m sorry-- i’m crusty and dry and there’s no wet kisses left to soothe your sandpaper thighs.
goodbyes come faster than sleep.
you took my bag of bones back because you caught me cuddling them instead of you. i miss their harsh lullabies. you opened up your heart and handed me back the key you swallowed and told me you were moving on to a new city. i watched you pack up the last shred of me.
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140,755 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
What I like so much about this particular poem is that I can almost imagine myself as the narrator/you. You imagery and pure writing is wonderful. The way your portray this distant love is beautiful. I love how the accepts the distance of this love but yet still tries to become close to the other. It's like a tale of love that isn't meant to be but happens anyways in spite of the fatelessness of it. I almost want to sake the narrator and say "Do you not see that this isn't going to work" but at the same time I want to hold er and cry for her as her partner leaves in the end. It's very melancholy, but the kind that deserves to be read and loved. This is fantastic and I love the message (sorry if my interpretation is not what you wanted it to be). But regardless of the message and it's true meaning, the poem in a whole was outstanding and I found my self reading it several time before I could finally stand to look away long enough to write this review. Thank you for sharing such magnificent work.
Well hello there, Anna Spark! It's been way too long, I know. I'm sorry.
I remember reading your older poetry about two or three years ago and I'm so proud of the way you've grown to find your own style and to suit this style to the stories you want to tell. Although I sense that your poems have a common theme, the way you work with this theme is what makes your work exciting.
I think you've done a good job at capturing the two conflicting emotions and trails of thought of the narrator, showing that this person is trying extremely hard to stay calm and collected when all they want to do is scream with desperation for their loved one to react, or to show more love and attention.
The italicized lines of your poem create the calm mood the narrator tries to surround him/herself with in order to keep things together. With this, the reader understands that what the narrator is actually going through is infatuation, especially with the contrasting lines that follow. These lines show that there is nothing worth hanging on to - the narrator knows this, the narrator feels this but continues to live through the pain believing that their love interest will notice. At least that's how I feel about the poem.
I did not really want to make this a review because it's already been done and you've already edited your poem but I have a few things that I don't think have their place in here. Of course, you're the maker of this poem so I'm not going to tell you to change anything you don't want to. These are just suggestions due to personal taste and opinion.
I dislike the repetition in 'tonight' and 'night'. I think you could have just ended the line at 'keep me up'. I don't know, I just think precising that it's nighttime is not needed.
Another repetition problem I have is with the word 'sleep' in the very first line and and the first line of the second stanza. I don't know why it bugs me so much. Maybe the second sleep could be turned into 'dream' or something of the like?
I absolutely adore the first line and I love the entire stanza but I feel as thought they are connected in no way whatsoever (or maybe they are too connected?). I'm going to take this literally: the lover won't accept kisses but accepts to have sex? Could this be due to shame or a way of showing that their relationship is purely sexual and that "sealing" it with a kiss becomes too intimate? I don't know.
Alright, now in the metaphorical sense, you still build that contrast between the idea of love the narrator has thought up and the reality before him/her but I feel like the first line reveals reality too, making this stanza different from the rest of the poem. It's like this stanza is a bulk of negativity in comparison to the way the other stanzas were structured. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense. Forgive me.
All that being said, I really admire this poem and how you've written it to bring about such a beautiful tone. Honestly, I love the tone above everything.
Good job, Anna Spark!
- Marco
god i miss you <3 thanks babe!
Wow Sparks.
Every time I read your poetry I just, It takes me somewhere. This is beautiful. I am in love with the style, how you make it your own, and I just, UGH. It's so freaking good. I wish I can write as good as you one day, truly.
I've never been one to pick on grammar so I'll just leave with that
Amazing <3
-Kammie-
First thing that jumped out at me about all of your writing, is that you don't seem to believe in capitalising any letters at all. This is incredibly distracting, because I spent my time trying to figure out why, instead of diving straight into your work.
Once I did get into it, I found it was a very visual piece, which seems to tell the story of an abusive or one-sided relationship. The bag of bones made for a strong post-apocalyptic metaphor which is good to set the tone here. Other than the lack of capitals, I have a few technical corrections:
This should end in a question mark, because the phrase "did you know" is a question.
You only need one dash, separated by spaces, like this: "...part of my life - but I never see me in yours." In a later line you also have two dashes, and this time a space after them, again, one dash surrounded by two spaces. Punctuation must be consistent and correct.
Otherwise, good work, very expressive.
One dash is actually a hyphen! Two dashes represent an M-dash, the correct punctuation. And although I don't like to follow the rules, the M-dash is supposed to be written without spaces in front or behind. Luckily punctuation and capitaization are often artist's choice!
You have to get out of the head space that capitalization is a requirement for poetry. It is not. It is a stylistic choice that poets make--one that I make quite often. I do not think that caps fit my style of poetry. There's is absolutely no reason for them to be there, I choose to not use them in most my works. Not using them sets a quieter, more melancholy tone to poetry. I like that tone. And that is why
And actually, it is the correct punctuation, just like Hannah said. I would LOVE to know what you actually thought of the poem, stylistically. That's more important to me than 'technical errors' any day.
*seconds what sparks said about capitalization*
Alright ladies and gents! *arms up* I surrender! Hehe, I shan't critique poetry again and hearby swear to stick to what I know. :-/
Hey Sizzle. Let's jam.
First I need to note the general habit of <primary sentiment here>, but <turn on the sentiment here>. It's not a bad practice, but much like sentence structure variety in prose, the structure of your metaphors, analogies, and personifications need to vary throughout your work.
The change in predicate from the freckles telling stories to being a drug doesn't sit well with me. The general flow can be improved by playing with the sentence structure--though it may just be the linear progression from "six times tonight" to "keep me up at night". You know how I am with telling a person to correct their style, but if it were me, it would be closer to
It changes a lot, but not really the premise or aim of the stanza.
Part two is disjointed: bag of bones -> sleepy -> monsters behind eyelashes. There's nothing to bring these parts together. The general idea of this stanza is vague, and I personally can't pick up on it.
The L-word feels juvenile, but it may fit the voice of the narrator. I'm unsure on this. You're really blatant with his problems with commitment, and I understand that in lyrical poetry such as this, subtlety isn't a necessity, but it doesn't evoke enough emotion to justify its lack of subtlety. As a general note, watch out for words like "and" and "so" and the extra words that bog down your flow. Often when you remove them, you'll find a better way of phrasing your ideas so that your flow is even better than formerly predicted.
The strikethrough in part four doesn't fit the physical contact theme of the stanza. Detachment from theme isn't always bad; it's just a note. I don't like five, and it's just a muddy interlude for your bigger picture. The only thing I want to take from this stanza is i don't love you, i breathe you. I'll take that line to my grave. The rest of it can find a trash can.
Part seven builds a really deep narration about the inequality of value between the two in the relationship, but then your strikethrough blows it up with "this is what I mean when I said everything else".
Eight revisits the idea of the one-sided relationship, but it doesn't bring much of anything new to the piece. I like nine for the revisiting of the freckles. It's generally just a good stanza after a series of underwhelming parts.
Ten has a lot going down, and I think it would be better spread throughout the piece; it would make things less linear, it would give your weaker parts more substance, and it would install the continuity missing from the remainder of the poem.
Eleven brings in a totally different voice that doesn't fit with the remainder. It's harsh and dramatic and it whips at the reader instead of narrating in the melancholy murmur found elsewhere.
We could workshop this together if you want. A lot of this left me conflicted, and it just feels weak compared to other material you've developed. Pick it apart and see how you feel about it.