Of Course I Would

Hi there, my friend! I love poetry, especially your poetry Ellie here to leave a review. Let's jump right into it!

There was never a sacrifice great enough

I would go to hell

I would take up the cross.

Of course I would.

A lot of religions believe that sacrifice is necessary to please god or even enter heaven (whether a literal sacrifice or a sacrifice of your sins/time/abilities). But this poem states that you could never offer a sacrifice great enough. You always came up short, you you settled on Hell, you settled on taking up any pain imaginable to be enough, but you never could. You knew you would.

Nothing one man could do.

Not even god, apparently.

It seems like the poem shifts to another person and how you would have done anything and taken their sins upon yourself. But perhaps the pains were too great for anyone to manage, so this was impossible. And even God could not help you in this situation, because the result was too painful any way.

I love this entire next section:

I have no sacrifice.

Death is so cheap it’s worth more to persist.

The world drowns around me

And I beckon you to the water

Can I baptize you?

It won’t do us any good.

I love how you connected the world drowning and being engulfed with water to baptism, an act often associated with salvation. The line of death being cheap was just *chefs kiss* so beautiful! Overall, this poem was very engaging and wonderful to read. I was captivated the whole time. Please post more soon!

Your friend,
Ellie

Hey there, Mint! Rebel here for a short review!

This was an interesting read, and a unique one at that. It starts like a typical love poem, where the narrator vows that they could sacrifice anything for their beloved one but soon it delves into existential dread of life and death and the futility of life and all the nihilism that comes with it, justifying the first line: "There was never a sacrifice great enough". So, without ado, let's get into it!

Mint wrote:There was never a sacrifice great enough

I would go to hell

I would take up the cross.

Of course I would.


If it meant my death was the end

Or even the beginning.

If I knew it meant anything at all

I would take on your sins in a second

Although the first two stanzas deceived me, making me think that this is a love poem of sorts (it still can be interpreted as one, to be honest), the first line foreshadowed what was to come.

Mint wrote:But there was never a sacrifice great enough,

Nothing one man could do.

Not even god, apparently.


There is only an ocean to be baptized in

To go under and take a drink.

Let it submerge you and fill your stomach.

Be baptized again.

I like the tactile, gustatory and visual imagery there. Also, the repetition of the word "baptized", although it felt a little odd to me coming from the first couple of stanzas, it made sense in the context of the rest of the poem.

Mint wrote:I watch the sea crawl up the shore

Promising to drown the world.

I am baptized again

And I drink as much as I can.


But there was never a sacrifice great enough.

There is an ocean so vast we can all have our fill

I cup my hands and bring them to my lips

Again and again

Again, beautiful imagery. I interpret the "ocean" as the ocean of life and the events that occur in it - pain, joy, sadness, excitement, fear, fury, boredom, love, elation and all the emotions that transfuse into each other and make life feel real and tangible. Or perhaps the sea is an allegory to the vast nature of time, how it devours and conquers all, no matter how long it takes. We all have our fills of time in this world, and we all live, laugh, and die.

Mint wrote:I have no sacrifice.

Death is so cheap it’s worth more to persist.


The world drowns around me

And I beckon you to the water

Can I baptize you?

It won’t do us any good.

This is the true crux of the poem, and its climax, in my opinion. The narrator descries death, rejects it, and chooses life - stating that no sacrifice is worth enough for them to give up the essence of living. Also, I was pondering about what baptize means in this poem - I interpreted it as "saving someone by sacrificing", but I am not sure if I am right.

Mint wrote:But you can taste my pain

And I’ll taste yours.

And we’ll all try our best to drink the ocean

To take on a bigger share of the world’s hurt


I can only convince you to hurt with me

To make a futile sacrifice

With your finite life

And I’m sorry.

An interesting end to an interesting poem, and I am not sure what to think of it except - awesome. The abstractness and the imagery and the theme/idea overall evokes an eerie feeling in the reader. And, I'm a bit amused that the first and the last line of the poem is enough, and yet not enough, to summarize the entire poem: "There was never a sacrifice great enough and I'm sorry".

Overall, it was a good read. So, keep writing! :p

P.S.: This review is brought to you by Team Tortoise.