120/80

Oh hey. So the title of this dragged me in even though I'm not much of a poet!

Overall I liked it, but I felt like there were jarring images here. Firstly, I really liked the juxtaposition between the clinical hospital bed and illness images with those of stars and clouds and spaceships. I think that was my favourite part of the poem, the contrast between those. So good job on that.

But regarding the hospital side of things - the peritoneal fluid repetition think didn't sit with me? Because 120/80 is a normal physiological thing, peritoneal fluid not so much. The first idea of stealing one an stowing another therefore made sense to me but from then on... Why would anybody want a basket of peritoneal fluid by their grave? It just didn't make sense no matter which way I looked at it. And lungs oiled with peritoneal fluid - what? As a medic it didn't add up xD

The brackets/parentheses, different colours and structures... They began to get too confusing for me with each different part not quite keepin to its own formatting and bleeding into each other enough that I felt the formatting was wasted and just didn't serve much purpose.

The line about the "cloud sweater" -- I liked this stanza but I felt like "over you" would make more sense because the way I read this, somebody had been buried face down, with the clouds on their back. Does that make sense? It was weird. Maybe consider rewording?

Also the word "cuticles" - I liked it a lot but when I looked at the stanza - cuticles polished? How so? I felt fingernails or something might be more appropriate.

But overall I really enjoyed this, nice job!

-Stella x

Let's dance, darling.

I don't like the repeativiness of tap-tap-tapping, lub-dub-dub. Nor do I like the brackets and then parentheses switches. While I usually chose brackets, it's a personal choice and it doesn't matter one way or another, but I do wish you'd chosen one. It just makes for a more cohesive feeling throughout your poem. I'm not quite sure what the imagery of wood has to with clouds, and it really doesn't work for me. Especially since it's the beginning. Cut it out and start with the clouds. The kite/stealing the sky is where it starts to get good. This is where I can see a glimmer of how amazing this poem is going to be. The title drop doesn't do it for me. It disrupts the flow you've got going about stealing the sky/the clouds. I'd like to see you keep the imagery going through it instead of switching the image.
Your formatting is interesting, but it doesn't make an appearance throughout the poem, which bothers the way I read it. It's all bunched together in the middle, and then it returns to normal stanzas on each end. I can't decide whether I like it or not, I switch back and forth every time I read it.

The metaphor of sewing stars is something I /adore/. Following that is more beautiful imagery with the ampitheatre/lions/stars/swords/here's to a life. I can't get enough of it and I want it all over. It's absolutely gorgeous. After the '~*~' we resume the repetitive tap-tap-tapping. Then again we talk about bruisings being covered with clouds. This, to me, makes more sense. And I like it but it's still not doing it for me. Maybe it's just such an odd pairing that my brain takes a double take or something, but seriously. I'm not quite sure it works. However the bones imagery? God it's gorgeous.
After another '~*~' we reach stanza 9. I don't like it. The sewing to a marble headboard is just far fetched. My brain went 'but wait that's not possible'. Because even with the allowance of a metaphor, that's just such a weird something that I can't wrap my mind around something being sewn to marble. I don't get it. 'left you a basket filled with...' is just a wordy line with too many somethings for it to flow.
Finally, the last stanza. I would delete the first line, we just talked about this fluid and now we're talking about it again? No thank you. Just leave it with the strong last stanza starting with 'the amphitheater beckons, sir'. It might be because I'm super biased about that stanza. (It's absolutely gorgeous after all), but I just adore it and I want to remember it forever.

This is a gorgeous piece, sweetheart. I'm starting to expect this from you, but seriously. Wow. Keep up the fantastic work <3
Sparkles

Ooooh! Ok, I'm still working my head around a few bits, but I like this! I'm not entirely sold on the structural stuff - i.e. different colors and offsetting, but that's mostly a personal thing - I tend to go for as little of that as possible, regardless of any other consideration (which isn't always a good thing!). That said, it does help for clarity, so I can't complain ^^ Plus, it rather reads as two poems until the break, and interlude, and then you merge them in the final section.

I absolutely love how you've woven this together, word-wise: it reminds me of how a sestina works and reworks the same lines and images, but without the more rigid structure (or you've done it so well I didn't notice!).

A few notes: "systolic action" reads forced to me, especially since "your diastole was dying" rolls smoothly for me.

This section: "fingers tap-tap-tapping against wood. hollow/inside; there are bones." I'm not sure your grammar works? I want that period to be a colon instead - it's not an entirely new thought, but rather directly related to fingers tapping on the wood. Then, the semi-colon between inside and there is a toss up, between staying that way or a period or something - I'm not sure. It's definitely a related thought, but not as directly connected. Play with it, maybe? It's definitely one of the only places I stumbled when reading through.

I love love love "but tomorrow/I will trade my teeth for metal and steal/a heart for you."

Overall, I wasn't quite sure what to expect just from your title, and while I did stumble on some of your terminology, I really like the overall effect. You have some lines I really like, and I love the effect of repeating lines/images.

Thanks for a good read!

Mesh