I thought if I bared my soul
to you, you would understand,
but instead, you covered it
with a blanket and urged me
to clean it with pure water.
I explained to you on my back
the mark stayed since I was born;
it was something only the minor type
of men had. I argued with you
it didn’t bleed pus, but was a birthmark,
so why did you pray to Them
and demanded me to remove it?
I knew this was not a mistake
for They would never make one
and for the text we had read
we needed a new lens, one
that came from someone
with a mark behind their back.
My preference of men with
the same birthmark was not a sin
since I knew They chose this for me
as They did to others, and yet
you slapped me with the story
of raping and hostile people.
I retaliated by flinging facts to you
and you dodged them with these words:
‘The right path.’ A U-turn, you asked for,
but I hadn’t made a move, and I
suspected the way you mentioned
served to sate your discomfort.
Because of people like you I would
hide my soul and keep my dagger
as trust was only known when one
replaced the other to face Death,
not when, to ensure one’s safety,
one would burn the other.
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140,597 Literary Works • 673,549 Reviews
Hi Light, Apricity here for a review.
Disclaimer before I start, I'm more or less rusty with my poetry review skills but let's see how it goes. Having read the brief summary of this poem, think I have a better idea of what it is. The idea of rectifying homosexuality as a birthmark is indeed a really interesting one, and an apt one too. The implication that one is born with homosexuality, that it is as natural as any other part of the body, but in some other ways. A birthmark also stands out due to the very fact that it's a birthmark. Hmm, interesting choice.
Let's take this stanza by stanza. I like the first one, the narrative style suits it well. The only thing there, in my opinion is the idea of 'pure water'. I don't know, this idea doesn't really fit well in my mind. Water itself, is pure unless the background here contains contaminated water than in usual cases. When you mention water, readers assume it being pure. The water here, I assume is symbolic of the 'holy water' and given that there is an underlying religious tone running throughout the rest of the poem. Why not use 'holy water' instead of 'pure water'. When holy water would maintain that religious theme as well as having a stronger effect.
The logical correlation in the second stanza could be better in some ways. It didn't bleed pus, granted pus is often associated with grossness and general unpleasantness. As well as infection and the such, but with the birthmark theme I don't think pus oozing out is the right idea. On top of that, in the last two lines of this stanza. You mention, praying to 'Them', referring I assume, some kind of deity. The reason for removal, from this stanza seems to be pus, I know what you're trying to say here. But pus isn't exactly the best reason to remove such a thing. What was the idea you're trying to go for here? Can you tease that out, rephrase it in some way?
I actually wasn't sure about this, I'm not familiar with Christianity at all (and I could be wrong that this is not at all related to Christianity) but the text here I assume, either refers to the Bible or something similar? But first three lines of this stanza reads really awkwardly, I'm not really sure as to what you're saying here. They would never make one what? One mistake? One text? There is no transition between 'one' and 'the text'. I'm kinda sad that you didn't dwell further into someone with the mark on their backs reading the text, and the consequence and difference that would make.
Mentioned the right path, or the U-turn? You addressed the issue of raping and hostile people here with facts. But you never really expanded on their idea of the right path, which in my opinion is something worth exploring.
Like Lauren said, I'm also baffled by the last stanza. Are you comparing your dagger to trust here, 'dagger of trust?' but what do you mean by dagger as trust? That trust is a dagger, how does facing death exactly relate to this. If you're approaching themes of suicide here and trying to euphemise it. Don't bother, you've been mostly half blunt with this poem and there's no need for it. It only serves to obscure what you say.
Other than these, I enjoyed reading this poem overall, the flow and rhythm was done well. Just certain word choices and the relationship between stanzas is something you can play around and explore more. I hope I've been helpful in this review, if you have questions, you know where to find me.
-Apricity
Hoo boy, I haven't wrote a review in quite some time so please bear with me. First off, I would like to tell you this poem really spoke to me because I am also part of the LGBT+ community and have struggled with my religion and other's reactions. You really brought the feeling of the following reaction to life.
A narrative poem is always a good choice when trying to bring points and also emotions across but sometimes parts can become a little awkward in wording and I can say I am quite guilty of this myself. I'm typing this in class so I can't read this aloud like I wish I could so I could get a deep understanding of the wording and how it sounds so please take this with a grain of salt.
The line
[/quote]
I explained to you on my back
the mark stayed since I was born;
[/quote]
is a little awkward and choppy when read but not bad, I suggest reading through stanza two and choosing words that flow through the whole passage.
I like the idea of your sexuality being a birthmark and the mentioning of the recipient of this narrative saying that it should be scrubbed off with 'pure water', it really was a good introduction to the point of this poem. All in all, this was a beautiful and relatable poem and I wish you all the best. I know how hard and upsetting this is and this person was never a true friend if they can't accept you for who you are.
Have a great day
Love, Katie
Hoo boy, I haven't wrote a review in quite some time so please bear with me. First off, I would like to tell you this poem really spoke to me because I am also part of the LGBT+ community and have struggled with my religion and other's reactions. You really brought the feeling of the following reaction to life.
A narrative poem is always a good choice when trying to bring points and also emotions across but sometimes parts can become a little awkward in wording and I can say I am quite guilty of this myself. I'm typing this in class so I can't read this aloud like I wish I could so I could get a deep understanding of the wording and how it sounds so please take this with a grain of salt.
The line
[/quote]
I explained to you on my back
the mark stayed since I was born;
[/quote]
is a little awkward and choppy when read but not bad, I suggest reading through stanza two and choosing words that flow through the whole passage.
I like the idea of your sexuality being a birthmark and the mentioning of the recipient of this narrative saying that it should be scrubbed off with 'pure water', it really was a good introduction to the point of this poem. All in all, this was a beautiful and relatable poem and I wish you all the best. I know how hard and upsetting this is and this person was never a true friend if they can't accept you for who you are.
Have a great day
Love, Katie
Hi SirLight!
I don't think I've read, let alone reviewed, any of your work before. So I'm glad to be here! This is such a lovely poem. I'm particularly fond of narrative poetry, especially poems that depict a relationship and/or struggle between two people to understand each other. So this was right up my alley. And you do such a lovely job of carrying us through the speaker's development and change because of this relationship that didn't turn out to be what they hoped.
I'm entranced by this idea of sexuality as a birthmark. It's a beautiful way to give something quite abstract a physical presence in a poem (which is something poetry often does so well!). It's such a strong image at the beginning of the poem, but as the poem goes on we lose sight of the birthmark image for the idea of the soul and the dagger. I wonder if the idea and image of the birthmark could do more work for you in this poem if it stayed a consistent idea in each stanza? It's such a wonderful image, I think there's a lot you could do with it!
On a similar note, at the beginning of the poem we have to images of the "location" of this person's sexuality as a physical space: the birthmark, and the soul. The birthmark, as I've said, is a lovely physicalization of an abstract concept. The soul is a very common image of who we are as people, and so it's certainly not a bad or incorrect way to present sexuality in this poem. However, it's an abstraction. We can't "see" a soul the way we can see a birthmark, and we can't "cover" a soul the way we can cover a birthmark. I wonder if the ideas in this poem would be made more powerful if they were focused on the more physical image of a birthmark, rather than the abstract image of a soul. The idea of the soul is also well-explored in poetry, but the birthmark image is so specific and original it would be a shame not to use it to it's fullest extent! (I also think that the birthmark image is a more interesting one than the soul, but that's a bad reason for you to change it.)
Finally, the last stanza was a bit muddled for me. I had a hard time following the ideas, perhaps because we're asked to follow both the soul and the dagger and it gets a but confusing which is doing what. It's possible the stanza needs simplification, or that it would be helpful to break it up somewhat with punctuation to make the ideas clearer. I didn't have any trouble following the rest of the poem.
All in all, this was lovely work! I'm so glad I popped in to check it out. I hope the review was helpful. Poetry is not my strong-suit, though I'm trying to read more because I do find it so lovely. Thank you for sharing your work!
Keep writing!
--Lauren