Young Writers Society

Hi there Swordfish! Niteowl here to review.

Overall, this is really cool, and it looks like you did some interesting things with the format. That can come off as gimmicky, but I think it works pretty well here. Let's dive in.

i cannot be high

and i know

Um...this sounds to me like being high from drugs. I think you could cut it altogether.

when i'm above the ground

i don't feel safe anymore

it's my safe place

The way this is written, it's unclear what "it's" is referring to. A slight rearrangement: "the ground is my safe place/above it/i don't feel safe anymore".

in the air, i can't grasp onto anything to hold onto

i can't grasp onto something to make me feel safe

The repeated "onto" makes this feel choppy. I would reword this by cutting at least one of them. Maybe "in the air, i can't hold onto anything/there's nothing i can grasp for safety".

you calm yourself down when you feel safe

the ground makes me feel safe.

Okay, so I understand punctuation is the poet's choice, but there's almost none in this entire poem except the comma in the quote above and the period here. Aley asked me to review this and she said you took out all the punctuation. Usually, I'm a standard punctuation kind of poet, but here I think you could actually use it in a cool way. Like you could use normal punctuation to make the reader feel grounded in some parts and feel "up in the air" without it.

i have never been on a plane

probably shouldn't be proud of that

and i'm not

which means i can never go to hawaii

i want to go to hawaii very much

I think this stanza has more punch if you take out the middle lines.

i used to be so scared

i refused to go on monkey bars

i thought the ground would disappear

and i could not hold on forever

Just quoting to say I love this. I was also not a fan of the monkey bars as a child haha. Though in my case, I would always try and fall and one time scraped my knee really bad.

yes

angel was scared of many things

including monkey bars

I thought the "yes" in the middle was strange. I'm also not sure about this verse overall...is "Angel" your name and thus we're suddenly switching to third person? I don't think you need this stanza.

as for spider webs

i never got to the top

i would fall on purpose just to touch the ground

Not sure what you mean by "spider webs" (might be a regional term?), but I love the last line.

but if i jumped

i wouldn't even have a surface to hold onto at all

i'm weird like that

This feels a little too rambly. I suggest cutting it.

push a landborn bug off a ledge

it probably won't live

Spellcheck is telling me "landborn" is not a word, and I agree it sounds weird. Still, I'm not sure what word would be an accurate replacement...wingless? Walking? Land-bound? I would chew on that. Aside from that, I like the ending.

Overall, this is a really unique poem with a strong voice. Keep writing!