I saw you walking the streets of New York with your new lover on a Sunday morning.
It was October, the warmth of the summer had vanished.
I watched you take her into the old coffee shop on E. 51st St.
Where you would watch me write in my journals,
Where I watched you study in books about cars.
We had just started our careers, together.
I watched you walk with her all the way to Central Park,
Where I threw your 23rd birthday party.
I even remember wearing that polka dot sundress you liked.
You told me that day that life couldn't get any better.
But now I feel like it couldn't get any worse.
You took her shopping on the Upper East Side,
Where we used to walk and dream of being rich when we had no money,
When we lived off of our love and worked our asses off for every penny.
And then you took her to Times Square,
Where you told me that you would marry me so long ago.
Where I believed that you would.
And that was when I left, unseen by you and your new love.
I took Park Avenue until it turned into Broadway, and stopped at Canal Street.
The sky was darkening as I walked through Chinatown,
Tears streaming down my face,
But my head held high.
I went to Angelos in Little Italy,
Where we used to eat every Thursday night,
No matter how busy we were.
After drinking a whole bottle of moscato from the liquor store,
I ended up on my doorstep on the Upper East Side,
Dressed in designer, a hot mess.
Because now, I am rich, and can shop and live on the Upper East Side like we dreamed.
I don't have to wish that I can afford things when I walk past those shops anymore.
I ended up just where we always wanted to be,
Except I was alone.
Now it is 3AM and all I can see is you and her.
Her tight black dress and body three times the size of mine.
Her brown eyes, that made me wonder if he calls her "brown eyes" too.
Her pin straight hair and her dark makeup.
But it wasn't her looks that made me jealous.
I knew that I was better.
It was the way that you looked at eachother.
The inner peace in your eyes that I long for everyday.
The way that you love her in the places you loved me
That she gets you every night and day.
That's what bothers me.
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140,234 Literary Works • 673,048 Reviews
A poem to blow your mind, like the first time your plane lands in New York City.
Firstly, let me specify that I am not habitual of giving 'titles' to my reviews, but here's to a sound exception.
Reading this poem was like a journey through New York City, which is dumbfounding because I haven't even left Dubai in years and years. And oh, the pain? The strenuous emotion? What does one even say. This was a kick in the gut, but the kind one asks for over and over.
The flawed narrator was an absolute delight to be in the shoes of. Literature truly means living so many lives other than the one you are born with, and this I realised just now when analysing the protagonist of this poem.
She is shallow, she finds solace in material things, yet she is aware of how madly she is in want of the depth that she knows she is capable of experiencing, and has experienced in the company of the person who did her wrong. Perhaps her bratty behaviour is a form catharsis from her pain. One thing is for sure: this is a complex character that we are dealing with.
On the other hand we have an utterly oblivious object of affection. He has no idea how she is suffering, and he has the audacity to repeat with his new muse, all the acts of a previous attachment. He seems flawed too, except we can't rely on the protagonist's account of him because she is clearly vehemently emotional.
The layers and dimension, coupled with the story-type format and the gorgeous, gorgeous narration via a trip down New York City makes this a genuine masterpiece.
I am actually nervous about reading your other works - who knows what you'll be doing with my emotions next?
Hey there! Nykolas here with another review.
I honestly cannot express how much I identify with some of this poem (mostly the very last part). You have some great descriptions of the memories. I love this poem so much. But I did have a couple problems with it.
Problem #1: ''It was the way that you looked at eachother.''
The ''eachother'' should be ''each other''. (Sorry, I am a grammar Nazi.)
Problem #2: The lack of stanzas.
Now, I get that this is quite short, but I still feel it could use some stanzas. You, however, are the poet in the end, so it is your decision. I just think it would help give the reader an idea of when you have a break in thought or a change in topic.
That's all, though. This is a great poem, despite what I just said. I wasn't trying to make it seem like I didn't like t, just trying to help. I hope you keep writing, and I can't wait to see more from you!
Happy writing and happy review day!
-Nykolas A.
Hello!
So this is my first review of one of your poems. I'd like to start with saying that I really think you've got good content here. You're working towards creating exactly the history of your speaker that you want to make them unique and realistic, which is perfect for poetry.
You do need to be careful about a couple things though. First off, your lines nearly always en in periods. You have absolutely no enjambment at all which makes this poem rather boring from the standpoint of line uniqueness. Lines themselves should be able to stand on their own as unique and interesting ideas, oftentimes differently interpreted than with their full sentence. How could that happen if each and every sentence is itself a line? I would suggest looking for unique sections of sentences you can put together to make a different idea than the sentence or a complimentary idea. For instance "you looked at each other. The inner peace in your eyes" is just the idea of looking at one another and provides a better description of that look and gives you room to play with "It was that way" which can be a really interesting fragment to put with something else.
Next, it looks like you may be having some issues with formatting here on YWS so here's a quick guide that has a couple useful ways to format on YWS and more guides if none of it makes sense. How to Format Poetry Read it over, or don't, I really can't say it matters to me, and I just thought you might want to have it if so desired. And just for the heck of it, here's the index where you can see all of YWS's helpful poetry tips, tricks, advice, and information Poetry Tutorials Article Index
Okay, the last thing I'm going to comment on is the repetition. You've got a couple words you're using too much too close together. I'm not saying you have to make every sentence unique of all words, but you should be using words maybe only once or twice a poem if you can help it. The one I noticed the most is "where" because it's at the beginning of so many lines. This could be fixed with enjambment [see article "Kiss my Assonance" for a definition if need be] but because so many of the sentences are cookie cutter with that style it makes the pattern really sort of bland.
I have more I could say, but those would be my two major things moving forward with what you write that you may want to play with. I hope to see more from you soon!
Aley
Amazing poem - your writing is amazing. So powerful. Thank you-