I want to be enough to make you happy,
I want to be your only love.
I want to be the last thing on your mind at night,
the one you're dreaming of.
I want to be enough to make you forget the others,
I want to fill that void so you no longer miss the past.
I want to be enough for when you're feeling down,
for me you'd only ask.
I want to be enough for you to confide in,
I want to be the one you lay your head upon to shed your tears of doubt.
I want to quell your fears and share your joys,
support you'll never go without.
There are many things I want in life, but nothing more than this.
Perhaps selfishly,
for you, I want to be
enough.
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125,004 Literary Works • 672,794 Reviews
SapphireEyes! I wish you nothing but the best, and I think you'll get along well with Wolfie36 and Wolfare1! Happy reviewing, friend!
Your syllable scheme was nice, no harm in it, except for the last line in the first stanza. Just take out the "always" and you'll be ready to go. It's okay if you don't want to, because it kinda take out the meaning, but I am trying, specifically, to make it flow better. I totally get the point though, so this is optional.
"...the one you're always dreaming of."
This was a little late, but the title, however beautiful and sentence-like, cannot have a period. No, absolutely not. Just trying to save you; it's total suicide to put a period in a title. You are so lucky to have me guide you. Really. I'm not kidding or going crazy or insane. Although I kind of am, just ask writer88. She knows.
Also, this is only a nitpick, and you have no idea how unnecessary this little thing is in the world, but for me tears of doubt doesn't work right. I would rather say "looks of doubt".
"...shed your tears of doubt."
Your capitalization was nice; at first I thought you capitalized it all on purpose, but then I realized you didn't and put capitalizations in the correct places. Good job on that, and good job on this poem overall. I felt warm and fuzzy, kinda, well, I don't know how to describe it. I guess I just sunk in like Parsee in the sea. (Go read Moby Dick!)
-wisegirl22
Hello! Thanks for reviewing.
I fixed the title right away. I'm not entirely sure I understand why its so bad but I'll take your word for it.
I also agree that "always" chokes up the flow a bit, so thats gone now too.
As for "tears of doubt", this has a contextual meaning to it, as this was written to give to someone to clarify things. So it makes sense in that sense but I understand what you're getting at.
thank you again -
PS I've read Moby Dick!
Yeah, I've finished and now reading Robinson Crusoe. Thanks for correcting!
Hey there; Isha here to review.
Alright, so I've got a few things I wanted to say about this. The title suggests a theme that could be touching, and extremely relative for a lot of people. The poem itself is about Lover A wanting to be enough for Lover B, and wanting to be Lover B's everything. Which is, in and of itself, kind of problematic considering people are their own and they have their own lives and no one can ever be anyone's everything, nor should they be. Theology and ethics aside, I want to discuss your imagery and your structure.
Firstly, I detest rhyming poems more often than not. I've seen it done well before, but generally speaking, all it does is add an edge of tackiness. I'm not going to expand on this too much here, because it's something that's commonly attacked (and rightly so), and picking apart bad rhyme schemes is getting as cheesy as the rhyme schemes themselves. In a nutshell, though: it seriously limits your word-choice, thus limiting your options as far as imagery goes. It also tends to lead poets into totally ruining the flow of their poems, unless they have a firmly established syllable count pattern (see: metric poetry, which still doesn't always rhyme).
Your imagery in and of itself was nonexistent. You've created a list of things that Lover A wants from and for Lover B, and it was dull to read. You don't have to be wrought in metaphor and fancy descriptions to be a good poet, but there's definitely a massive difference between being minimalistic and being completely dry. You're telling us, plain and simple, and not showing us. You're trying to be touching, but you've created a stale list that, honestly, seems a little bit demanding. You can't demand someone's trust; you have to earn it, regardless of what you do or don't want.
Long story short: potentially excellent, relateable theme; poor execution with no imagery.
Good job and keep writing,
~Ish
Thanks for reviewing!
It was written to give to someone to explain how I was feeling, so going with the bare bones approach was the best and I didn't want there to be any confusion. Normally imagery is my strong suit but this wasn't about that, it was about getting a point across.
I also never write rhyme schemes, but the way it started when I first begun writing it thats how it ended up, so I just stuck with it. Not a fan of rhyming myself quite honestly but it IS the back bone of poetry.
Rhyming never has been and never will be the "backbone of poetry." Ever.
Take with salt; mind the edges.
I have a handful of comments.
Awk. "The others" is weak wording. I would almost just tell you to omit it; but I think perhaps you actually lose some meaning in doing so. Consider rewording this somehow, in.stead
Poor organization. I think "for only me you'd ask," or "for me alone you'd ask" better conveys your purpose here.
Awk. The second half, "for you to confide in thoughtlessly," just feels off-balance. Which is a wholly qualitative and unjustifiable thing to say. But... to put it more concretely, the line is long and nothing really happens with most of the words. Because of the "I want to be enough..." thematic opening that this line employs, you really don't have the wriggle room to poke around with long and boring words like "thoughtlessly." Perhaps even just omit "thoughtlessly." Hemingway would have you believe that adverbs are egregious, anyway.
There's this beautiful play between phrases happening with "selfishly" and "I want to be," but it's terribly subtle.
"Perhaps selfishly" is a sentence fragment. I suggest ending that line with a comma.
Then consider breaking between 'be' and 'enough' to make the wordplay more explicit, so more of your readers may catch on.
Or, on the other hand, don't. Save that little subtle beautiful piece for the people who are interested and studious enough to find it.
Be forever hortatory,
~Skorlir
Thank you for reviewing!
I agree "the others" is very awkward but I really couldn't think of anything else appropriate that would fit there in my circumstance.
The poor organization was intentional, but I can see where you're coming from.
I'm a little on the ropes about deleting "thoughtlessly" because I did actually delete it twice but then re-added it. It seemed too short without it. But perhaps you're right. Hemingway would be disappointed.
I fixed the comma/period issue with the "perhaps selfishly" because that makes much more sense, and I really liked your break idea for the end. Thank you again!
I loved this so much. Not to just spit out my life story but my boyfriend and I live two hours away from each other we barely see each other and there is nothing I want more than to be enough for him. He's had a rough past and this was basically everything I've ever felt. I can't even think of anything to explain myself just that I felt every word of this. Mind if I share it with him ? Got off track there. My review is it flowed very well and it obviously reached out to me. I like poetry I can relate to.
Of course you can share it with him! I'm very glad that it reached you on a personal level, thank you!
Hey here! Hadj to review!
Nitpicks
I don't have any real nitpicks, but I was confused by the second to last line:
It seems a bit out of place, and I don't understand the brackets.
Criticism
This was an awesome poem, but there are a few things I would change. The first, is the second stanza. Stanzas one and two have an awesome rhythm and rhyme scheme. I don't like how stanza two has an extra line, as it causes inconsistency in the poem. The second thing I would change is the last stanza. In addition to its unique format, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. How is it selfish, to what to be enough to make someone happy? To me that seems rather selfish. And again, I was confused by the brackets.
Praise
Overall, awesome poem. It flowed well, and was very fun to read.
Great job, and keep writing!
Hadj
I appreciate the help! I nixed the additional line in the second stanza because it really does through off the consistency. And I got rid of the brackets (I honestly don't know what happened there) and fixed it to how it should've been.
As for the How is it selfish - I guess whats selfish about it is the feeling of not wanting to share the person the poem is directed at. Or at least I feel selfish saying that.
It sounds much better now, but
still seems a bit out of place. It is surrounded by periods, but not a sentence, and its difficult to tell what you are calling selfishWow, this poem speaks to me in volumes. Please continue to publish this beautiful work!
Hey Sapphire, Stella here!
So I'm not big on poetry but I figured I would give this a go.
Thematically, I was confused. I get what you're trying to say from the title - you just want to be enough for someone. And somehow, that one incomplete statement makes more sense than the flurry of images that we see through this poem. I felt confused about how you want to be enough, in what ways? And I feel like that was confusing you yourself as well. The poem seems to focus around the events of the future - the plans that the speaker has to become enough for their lover - but the second stanza dives into the past instead. It's jarring, and it doesn't quite fit together, especially once you go back into the future.
Another thing was this line:
This puzzled me - in what way is the object of the poem being selfish? Or did you mean something else by this line? Again, thematically, I didn't get it. Because I understand that the love of the speaker is selfish and selfless at the same time - that feeling when you want to give yourself to another person, to make them happy, but it isn't totally selfless because in doing so you are making yourself happy. But some of the lines seemed more possessive than that, eg:
This was a lot more aggressive than the poem which over all has a gentle, almost servile approach. This seems much more possessive and seems to me to belong in a different poem - I mean what about loves like the person's family and friends? Are they included in this statement?
Overall I just felt that the separate elements of the poem didn't gel together to make a whole. I was left at the end not quite sure of what you'd been trying to convey to me. I really think that you need to look hard at it and think, "What message am I trying to leave at the end of this poem?" Go through it line by line - does that line, by itself, with no context, add to the theme? If not, then maybe it needs changing. Make sure that everything runs together.
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Thank you for reviewing Stella! I've made some edits-
I suppose it would make more sense in context- as it was written for someone to clear some things up. I definitely wasn't confused on how I wanted to be enough, more so confused on how to word it with the restrictions I had initially placed on myself by choosing to stick with a rhyme scheme. As for the jump into the past, again context would help here but I'm not going to go into details over my relationship here.
"Perhaps selfishly...." has been changed to make more sense, at least in terms of how I wanted it to sound.
In terms of the aggressive/servile approach, again context would be a huge help here. The aggressive line that you pointed out was definitely meant to be aggressive, while the rest of the poem was meant to be more gentle and loving. Not exactly servile, as I would expect he would desire the same things from me, making us equals.
Thank you again though, if theres anything else you can think of with the edits I'd be more than open to suggestion!