The air smelled like salty oceans,
And like new books and redwood trees.
It was full of gold dust,
That swept her up into the cotton candy clouds.
Magic was real, and in this place
She could run faster than
Any one else ever had.
Everything radiated light.
There were slanting gates
Rising high on the very far edges
Keeping the desecraters out
Only she had the key.
Even if the outside
Was being crushed by sand
Or crashing and trembling
This place was safe and beautiful.
She could sit with her eyes wide
Open, and her ears being
Bombarded by
Frightening syllables
It did not matter because her eyes
Did not see, her ears did not hear
Her soul was far away
Frolicking and dancing among sunny raindrops
But then the rain started to chill
And stopped falling in glorious curtains
Instead they hung in the air
Becoming the thickest mist.
She huffed and puffed and tried
To breathe out the crisp wind
That she missed so much, the wind
That made the gold dust swirl.
She was so busy exhaling in her
Desperation that she did not see
It coming. The fog
Hid It from her sight.
But Its howling crept into her ears
The shrieks and whispers churned
And smashed and shattered every window
And made her mind bleed
She was up very high and falling fast
The air whipping past her
Stung her face with it’s
Ice-cold red-hot needles
She was freezing and she was burning
She was suffocating under boulders
And dizzy from spinning
Too fast.
Her favorite colors were garish
And they burned her.
She could not look at
Familiar things.
Mirrors and strobe lights
Discordant, crashing chords, chilling laughter
And darting shadows that whisked past her,
Distorted everything.
She tried to gather the least tainted
Of the puzzle pieces into
Her arms, but they dropped
As she ran and fell.
She saved only one puzzle piece
Of her beautiful shiny place
Just enough to look through
Like a telescope
Every now and then, brilliant sparks
Of gold dust fall, out of the
Tiny little almost-square,
Onto her bedside table.
She starts with longing, and seizes
The piece up, holding it to her eye,
She peers through it and sees
Nothing,
The fog is still suffocating
The fresh scent of her air
And the awful sight recalls echoes
Of the terrible It lurking still.
Sometimes the moisture and
The terrible sounds leak out and
Clutch her, and then release her,
Laughing at their clever game.
She is afraid of the next time that
They will want to play. She hides
Behind a rock, shivering,
And crying for her lost world.
Points:
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Canary word: Present
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141,299 Literary Works • 674,334 Reviews
Okay, so this piece has A TON of cliche ideas and words and phrases. However, I think it mostly worked. I'd take a few out just because poetry should taste new and different and beautiful and cliches lose their beauty the more they're used. That being said, I really couldn't find any major grammar mistakes, so good attention to detail there. I wanna talk about the mood of this piece. Well, really I just want to know who this girl is because she sounds magnificent and beautiful and a very wonderful person, and if this poem is based off a real person then you are very lucky to know someone like this. Anyway, your rhythm was lovely because I didn't get too slowed down and it was fast enough to keep me entertained although the poem itself is sort of long. Kudos on that too. I also really felt the sadness of this piece but it has a bit of a hopeful message to it too which was good. Like it wasn't all doom and gloom. So again, good job. I liked it a lot! Keep writing
~Tiny
It is a challenge, I think, to be so original with a blend of cliches. Cliches are, of course cliches because they are true, and represent the thing they do with such candor that we often find it difficult to express it any other way. Here you manage it though, an affect achieved mainly through the mood. The language is fast, and the reader is expected to be equally quick. I found myself reading more speedily as I neared the end because I felt the anxiety of your heroine.
I think that your poem is about memory, and the powers that good memories have in providing us rapturous sunshine, as with the telescopic single puzzle piece, saved from a broken image of a better time. That, to me is a beautiful double metaphor. The one piece we have of better times acts telescopically to transport us, into the murky past. A bit of happiness in a bleak present. While the IT, the unknown future is just around the corner, and screams like a banshee if we get too close. Yet is always elusive when we try and predict its movements. So we turn back to the present, and what can there be in us but panic when we find that our telescope to the happy times of the past has clouded. So perhaps another double meaning about how difficult it is to grow up, and what is expected of youth in such a short span from teen, to capable adult.
We'll never grow up, we say to ourselves, and then IT comes. IT being the barbarous adulthood plagued with so many more ills than before. What can we do, but sit behind a rock, shivering, and crying for our lost world?
Overall a piece driven by real emotion, and though it be a strange turn of phrase, originally pieced together cliches. Which comes as a compliment, I assure you. I am intrigued by your style. Thank you for sharing your work.
Please do make more.
Oh, wow. That's cool. Maybe it's just because I like fantasy worlds and imaginary places, but I love this poem. There is incredible word choice and description in here.
I don't want to intrude or shoot down other people's comments, but I honestly like the way it's all one stanza, not separated. Again, maybe it's just personal preference, but I think it works well that way. To me it seems to make everything flow better, and since it seems like you're telling a story here, it just seems to work perfectly.
I guess the only other thing I would maybe mention to make this better would be in the first two lines: since you already have one "like" in the first line, I don't think you really need another one in the second line. Maybe it would flow a tiny bit better there if you dropped the second one.
I did like how you made the "it"s bold. It helped get your point across much more obviously.
I really don't have much else to say. This poem is awesome.
Hi. So I have to say that I didn't mind reading this poem at all. It was very carefully and elaborately written, with strong figurative language and imagery. I liked how you described in the beginning how everything radiated light. By the time you got to the end, there was a massive shit from positive to abysmal. The only thing I saw wrong was a few spelling errors. For instance, you said "Its" but then said "it's" as in possessive. Was that intentional? If not I would advise you to change it and also re-read this while scoping for other simple errors. Overall I enjoyed this, but I do have to admit that it was very lengthy.
Hi there! I got interested by your description of the poem, and after reading it, have decided you've done an amazing job, so good for you
I like how you've described her safe place as a real, physical place where nothing can touch her. However, I feel like it all changed so fast, and how it started with the raindrops. This is about her sudden deprivation of innocence right? So, is there a reason you've started the end of her safe place with raindrops? I just feel like if her innocence is breached, it would be breached from the outside, by SOMEONE, not something like raindrops.
I do really like the change though. This line just reminded me so much of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf: 'She huffed and puffed and tried' - just one line, but so many memories of that fairy tale come with it so I must ask the question: are you trying to bring thoughts of this story into your poem? Because if it's not purposeful, it's unfortunate that it is so often tied to the big bad wolf; and in that case, my recommendation would be use a different word choice.
Also, this 'it' character is confusing me. So I've gathered it's what destroyed her innocence, her safe place, but what is this 'it'? I mean, think about the concept of innocence. Could an 'it' have done that? Destroyed her safe place? In reality, what causes people most trauma is other people. So this 'it' to me seems more like a 'him' or 'her'. After all, they've just breached her safe place.
Well, I don't mean to criticize so much. I really did like it
So, keep writing!
~ Sarra ~
Thank you!
The 'it' is sort of supposed to be confusing, because the whole safe place idea is protected from outside. And nothing outside could ever get in. Something inside changes and ruins it all, and is this awful shock. Because going crazy doesn't come from outside.
And the big bad wolf connection was intentional, as sort of a clinging to childhood and innocence as all of that is leaving.
This was a very nice poem. YWS often changes the format, so you may want to edit it and put it into stanzas again. It would make it so much easier to read, and create more of an impact on the reader.
Anyway, I love how you started the poem fairly positive, then changed it into something darker, like a flip of a light switch, we went from light to dark... and I loved it!
Really, the only thing you need to change is the layout. Once that is done, if you can let me know, I shall do a more detailed review if you so wish. I just cannot really see anything due to it all being so close together.
So, keep writing and keep me updated!
-Clarity'xo