for the new year, you will cry me a river
and jokingly remark, but it's new tear's day, right?
but forgive me if i do not laugh.
you will wallow, as i once learnt to wallow
in grief, and relish the feel
of sadness curling like a fog inside your ribcage.
relish the feeling when your fingers turn to sawdust, when your hands
turn to stone. breathe it in, slowly, the lingering scent
of sandalwood paste on your palm
and cold stone on your cheek,
because you are not going to live long enough to remember a next time.
once, you mentioned to me over a bowl of granite
and a scalding cup of tea, that you wanted to build cities out of rust.
but you do not realise that every word that leaves your lips
is tearing down the city that we built, the city
that i cradle so gently between my palms.
tear me down, and inside up, and wash away the guilt
with a cold cup of tea. watch the tea leaves swirl to the bottom
in a kaleidoscope burrow of futures better left unsaid.
i open the windows every morning, not because i like the cold,
but because i am afraid that if i speak, i will wake up the next morning
to glass digging into my palms, and heartache
digging graveyards in my chest. i tell you, please don't sink, please try
a little harder; you won't find the answers
in the bog that swallows your heart. but i learned long ago
that there is no stopping a tide from returning to the sea;
and it is true:
there is mist snaking from your body, in every inhalation &
exhalation & badly-delivered diatribe.
you do not understand that when you breathe,
you do not rid your heart of poison.
there is a well at the bottom of your garden, and every year
we carve into it a little deeper, and every year
we lean over the edge and cry until the bucket falls, and every year i wonder
if some day you will tire of trying
to fill it.
(every new year, i cry myself a riverbend.)
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hello there my name is Hannah and here's my review
I like have you used both normal writing and italics I think that's great. when you said "and relish the feel of sadness curling like a fog inside your ribcage" maybe you could have used something else to describe how the sadness curled like a tornado or something. But anyway I think this is a good piece of writing and I can tell you have put a lot of thought and feeling into this. keep up the good work
Hey there I'm Hope and I'll be your reviewer today! Let's begin!
So you started out strong, the first stanza is funny but sad; it's relate able. I could easily imagine it being a conversation between me and my friends. You have a great sense of imagery and the poem is filled with feeling and emotion throughout.
Obviously I have a few bones to pick, number one being I couldn't really pick out what the theme is. I could kind of feel it there, like knowing your friend is at the party but not being able to find them in the crowd. I could talk to some people and make some new friends, but it's still not as fun without your friend. I could pick out my own theme from what I read, but (for me) it doesn't have the same kind of power.
I would focus on the central idea of the poem a bit more, try to convey the story/idea behind the words. There's so much feeling in this piece, but I want to know why the feeling is there. What caused you to feel that way?
The other thing that really stuck out to me was the repetition of words.
"you will wallow, as i once learnt to wallow
in grief, and relish the feel
of sadness curling like a fog inside your ribcage.
relish the feeling when your fingers turn to sawdust, when your hands
turn to stone. breathe it in, slowly, the lingering scent
of sandalwood paste on your palm
and cold stone on your cheek,
because you are not going to live long enough to remember a next time."
Wallow, relish, stone, feel/feeling. See what I mean? It's very repetitive, and the end sentence kind of gets lost. Try changing up the wording, a thesaurus is your best friend, you might even find something that you think fits better. So your fingers turn to sawdust and your hands turn to stone, does that mean you don't have anymore fingers? Just the two different textures throw me off, it feels awkward to me. Then there's the lingering scent on the palms, and of cold stone on the cheek. I'm guessing you wanted them to relish the sensation of cold stone on their cheek, not the smell of it. The way it is written currently makes it seem like you're talking about the smell. I love your depiction of sadness in this stanza, it is perfection.
You have a lot of very memorable bits in here that I loved, Like "building cities out of rust" or "glass digging into my palms, and heartache digging graveyards in my chest." "No stopping a tide to returning to the sea."
But I feel like you need to tie them together a little better, like I said earlier, the central theme needs to be a bit more present throughout. I feel like if you connect the dots a little more it will flow a lot better (If that makes any sense). Anyway I have some other comments, but no time to add them in at the moment so if you'd like me to explain anything or want a little more advice feel free to PM me! Have an awesome day!
~Hope