Hi there Skye! I know this poem is really old but I'm here regardless, courtesy of RevMo!
My favourite part of this short, bittersweet poem is definitely the imagery and emotion you convey through the language. Words like "quivering", "absorbing", and "abyss" all work really well to set the mood and tone of the piece. I also enjoy how you emphasize certain concepts by making a single word into its own line.
On a related note to those one-word lines, I'd like to mention formatting - specifically, stanzas (the paragraphs of the poetry world!) Right now, your poem is all one stanza. I think you could add stanzas to add to the effect of the one-word lines and add to the drama of the poem!
For example, you could divide it up something like this:
Light.
It fell on a quivering, sensitive mouth.
~
Lips.
Lips were mouthing words,
Words I did not want to hear.
~
Pain.
Absorbing, beautiful pain.
Pain eased itself through every pore in my body.
It tore at muscles, lungs, heart.
It heated my senses until they burned like fire.
~
I could see nothing but that round, gorgeous mouth talking,
Saying those words I wanted to hear least.
~
I was falling.
Falling into an abyss of desperation and contempt.
~
Darkness fell.
The light was gone.
(The publishing center can be finicky so to make sure the stanzas stay separated you can add a placeholder, like "~" or "-", to keep them apart!)
That's definitely just one way you could choose to divide the poem up ~ the main thing to keep in mind is that stanzas are used to show where one thought/concept/idea stops and the next one starts! The way I've demonstrated using stanzas would work well to emphasize the words "light", "lips", and "pain", like I mentioned earlier.
Another thing I'd like to mention is repetition. The way this poem is worded, sentence structure and vocabulary is repeated a lot, and some of it is unnecessary/weakens the delivery, so I've pointed out a couple spots where you could play around with it a little to see how it affects the flow of the poem!
Lips.
Lips were mouthing words,
Words I did not want to hear.
could become something like:
Lips
Were mouthing words
That I didn't want to hear.
Pain.
Absorbing, beautiful pain.
Pain eased itself through every pore in my body.
It tore at muscles, lungs, heart.
It heated my senses until they burned like fire.
could become:
Pain,
Absorbing and beautiful,
Easing itself through every pore in my body.
It tore at muscles, lungs, heart,
Heating my senses until they burned like fire.
Hopefully that makes sense - the point is to eliminate any unessential repetition of a word (usually a noun), since the more a word is repeated in a poem the less meaning or effect it has upon the reader.
I was falling.
Falling into an abyss of desperation and contempt.
Darkness fell.
The light was gone.
^I like how you end the poem, it feels very finished and dramatic! "The light was gone" is so heavy and almost theatrical and just, I don't know, I think it works really well to bring the poem to a close!
Overall, I love how you convey emotions throughout the poem, and the imagery you use adds to the overall mood. My main suggestions would be eliminating repetition and looking at stanzas! I hope this is useful (if you ever even read it!) and if you've got any questions feel free to ask
whatchamacallit
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