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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
text version:
i fell in love with you under a star crusted sky.
hazy, lazy summer nights that felt long but flashed past
lightning reflecting off neon lights in a frat basement, pools of water swirling at my feet
not just rain, but a pouring
or upstairs, on a couch, laughing at something stupid croft did -
an oxymoron to fall in love with anybody in a place meant for anonymity.
even now i can hear the pounding at the end of sweet caroline
and see your face shining over at me when i made that crazy trick shot
hell yeah, baby.
swinging from eyelash to eyelash, monkey bar style
weaving those initial nights into my skin and still wanting you closer.
chocolate eyes, jet black hair, a laugh like a sunset
the biggest brain i've literally ever seen. unraveling the universe between your fingertips
to help me make sense of what it was i wanted out of life.
idk, i just think it's amazing that
i met you so young
as if fate couldn't wait to catch up to all my dreams and dragons and desire.
an eternity of something i can't name reincarnated over and over and over
what was once stuck between my ribs and pounding heart, no longer.
in those fleeting, weathered months i learned what we had before i knew its name
a path, a future, a way forward out of the forest. walk up to the bonfire and smile
sit in wes' driveway and watch the smoke filling up your car
what was that song we always listened to? i’d feel it in my bones if i heard it.
i should have known to bottle those days like perfume so i could hold onto the way
your lips parted before you kissed me for the first time.
the crookedness of your laugh after you accidentally told me you loved me.
the reflection of you as i dove headfirst into your Mississippi river
trusting you would know to pull me to shore.
There’s something hypnotic about how you move from natural beauty -> gritty reality -> raw emotional metaphor. I love that! I feel like this mirrors how memory often works. Your line breaks carry weight without over-structuring, and I think that freedom gives it its soul. The poem feels like memory as a sensation. Love doesn't happen in a straight line. It happens around things.
Like this line, for example:
This stood out to me in particular! It captures the essence of what makes young love in chaotic places so magical and so improbable. You set up the tension early. Love growing in a place built to forget. It sticks, because he sticks.
I see, as well, that you're writing in a style that privileges rhythm over clarity, and for the most part, that works. I do think that in some places, the flow sacrifices a lot of the deeper symbolism. For instance:
These feel like metaphors with a lot of weight behind them, but they come off a little heavy-handed without context.
Besides that, I like the loose formatting! Run-on sentences and minimal punctuation is very fitting for this style of poem. If anything else, I’d suggest leaning into that more deliberately. There isn't much about the poem that is dynamic to me -- it follows a very linear, although beautifully romantic, path.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much!
So this is definitely an interesting one. I like the casual language used and the overall tone of it all. It definitely feels confident and like it knows itself and the language used. I wouldn't have imagined such heavy emotions in such a way, but it's clearly done well.
I think the only thing I'd really like to comment on is the that the mixed used of informal and formal tone doesn't always blend together well. While I definitely like the line "*In those fleeting, weathered months I learned what we had before I knew it's name,*" (And I mean that sincerely, it's a beautifully written line.) I do think that it felt a little jarring compared to a line like "*The biggest brain I've literally ever seen.*"
Overall, I adore the emotional complexities in this piece, and I'm a huge fan of the visuals given. Please keep writing. <3