We sat beside each other, separated by an empty seat.
Eyes ahead as the train moves, swoosh sound poking
at the silence. It was like watching a mute movie.
Our sealed mouths contained many things and though I knew
desire and longing filled mine, yours remain a mystery. Could this
mundane routine shatter with the tiniest change? Like a drop
of paint falling to the pool, creating patterns of colours?
I did not know if you noticed me, but we always
took the same seat and stopped at the same place.
You were always in the train before I arrived, checking
your phone as if the only existences were it and you.
Why was it whenever I wanted to gesture something to you,
an invisible force always pulled my hands to my sides?
When passengers in the train minded their own business,
a conversation between strangers was as often
as the discovery of a four-petals clover.
I wanted to see you without others seeing us.
When uttered words were a threat to the muted peace,
I wished my actions could speak louder than words
but I feared the stares when I started to gesture.
Like usual, we reached at our destination and exited the train
at the same time. Finally, you looked at me and huff.
‘Fine, I get it. Are you coming or not?’ you asked,
your irritation a therapy to my soul.
I offered gratitude to the divine above as I replied
with silence, just like I did to everyone else. I smiled
and stood closer, hoping you would notice my true answer
laid where our shoulders met, a language of its own,
thriving through silence.
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140,396 Literary Works • 673,154 Reviews
This is a beautiful poem, that is very deep from the soul. I really like your writing, very sophisticated and old fashion. Keep on writing, you are amazing.
I love this poem, this is now my favorite poem of all time.
Very clean, precise, it looks like writing comes very naturally to you.
Keep up the good work. It is so sad that this man is not giving the girl the attention she deserves. he seems so cold and distant that I believe he is undeserving of her. Anyhow this was a beautiful poem and I hope that you keep up the good work.
You get good at writing by following these three simple steps:
1) Write a lot. The more you write, the more you’ll tune in to your unique voice and the better you’ll get.
2) Get critiqued occasionally. You should never pay any attention to what your mother says about your writing, or what anyone who loves you says about your writing, because all those people are liars. You should pay attention only to people who know what good writing is and who also know how to critique bad writing. Many who know good writing don’t have any idea how to critique bad writing and will not be able to help you.
Also be aware that many people who know how to critique bad writing would not recognize good writing if it stabbed them in the eye. This is tragic, but deal with it. You are looking for somebody who has both of these skills, and those people are rare.
You need to be told when your writing is bad and why it’s bad, because when you start writing, your work will be awful and you will imagine it’s brilliant. You also need to be told when your writing is brilliant, because by the time your writing is brilliant, you will have been told so many times that your writing is bad that you’ll imagine you are the worst writer who ever lived.
It’s just a fact that all bad writers think they are amazing and all great writers think they are terrible. And that’s why you need to be critiqued occasionally. Don’t do this every day. It hurts too much. A little critique goes a long way.
3) Study the craft of writing in books, lectures, or wherever else you can learn it. You most especially need to do this after getting critiqued.
You can’t figure it out on your own. Find a book that explains in clear words how to do right what you are doing wrong. When you finish the book, you will again believe in yourself enough to go back to step 1 and write a bunch more.
And have fun!
It’s just a stop along the road. Writing is more about the journey than the destination. As award-winning author Anne Lamott points out, “Being published isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Writing is.” So don’t let your non-published status get you down. Just enjoy where you are right now.
This review is not useful at all.
ok then
Beautiful. I loved this so much. It's grammatically correct (even after my second and third time reading!) The idea of longing for someone you have never met before is really a tragedy that rarely ends in happiness.
However, the spacing of the lines confused me. it made the flow fairly choppy, as if you were stopping in the middle of your sentences. To help cure this, read your poem aloud before revising. Take a breath at the end of each line. That's how it feels to read it.
Besides that, I loved it very much.