Young Writers Society

Hey Legacy! Here for some last minute RevMo reviews!

So this is a pretty intense poem! I clearly get the feeling of being defeated and giving up, the speaker is being portrayed as feeling really weighed down by their situation from a couple different standpoints they can't fight their feelings or be strong enough for two people, and their partner is sick so cannot lend their own strength. The speaker wants to escape the situation but it feels inescapable. I think a lot of people can relate to this sort of scenario either with romantic relationships that turn wrong, or family member relationships or friendships, there's a lot of toxic one-sided relationships in the world and that's a tough feeling to deal with.

Now on to poem structure - > from the title, I thought the main image would be sinking. But you really only use that sinking metaphor in the first stanza -> I would love if you expanded this a bit more maybe with some real water imagery and descriptions and used it not only at the beginning but all the way through the poem. This would make the poem feel more cohesive to have one central image that's pulled all the way through, because right now some of the problems the speaker's facing seem unrelated.

You seemed to stick to a solid capitalization and punctuation pattern that stayed consistent through the piece, this is good. The only change I'd make there is that the usage of ellipses (...) in the last line is a bit over-dramatic. Ellipses tends to be misread as confusion or trailing off or dramatic pause for the sake of humor or surprise - so it rarely adds to a piece in my opinion except makes the reader question why it's there because its usage is pretty ambiguous.

A last suggestion is imagery would be a good add, as well as specificity to the problem the speaker is facing. Right now the problem feels a little too general to really understand what's going on, and a bit scattered too. The speaker may have a whole bucket list of problems with the subject of the poem, but it'd be better to really hone-in and focus on one so that the poem can be more focused and the message can come across more clearly.

Overall, I think this poem communicated emotion very well! And the image of someone sinking because of another person, is a great metaphor to build on. A bit more imagery and specificity would go a long way in bringing this poem to the next level.

All the best,

alliyah

Greetings, legacy! I hope you don't mind me calling you that.

I'll be frank; I like the poem. It's quite simple, without deep meanings or hints of something other than what it is, and it made for a good read.
Just a quick question: what kind of capitalization are you using? You've capitalized words beginning after commas but also ones in the middle of what should have been compound sentences.
The first stanza is the best, it creates a rather powerful image. That said, if you're feeling low you can always, always talk to me any time you want. <3

I will always be the stronger person,

Even when I don't want to, because you can't.

You can't help that you're sick and broken.

This has a very modernist approach to it, a piece of congressional poetry. I like the motif of drowning here, there seems to be a flow in the work, which rather than being anxious is accepting the drown, taking it like it is.