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140,115 Literary Works • 673,019 Reviews
Hey there! I'm here to review you again for The Big Review.
I have some mixed emotions about this poem. I absolutely love the start and the end, but for me the middle starts meandering, and parts of it are vague in the message you want to get across. I am not personally familiar with the subject of self-harm, but there are parts of this that really speak to me.
Nitpicks
I like this. It's a good opening. It feels a little incomplete, but since the last stanza brings this full circle and completes it, I don't have a problem with it.
I don't think the second line is necessary. I think if you cut it, the juxtaposition of being repaired by "steady" hands (implying that the person knows what they are doing) but still being "scarred" will work better. You use surgical lamps later in the poem, but far enough away that it doesn't feel connected to this one, another good reason that it's unnecessary.
I am not very familiar with how different shades of skin burn/tan, but I would associate "darken" with tanning, not burning. I would associate red skin with sunburn. So maybe you could rework that to read "they refuse to match me [or darken] when I tan/and never blush red when I burn"
Also, "eyes" imply that the narrator feels like the patches are watching her, but you don't go back to that idea in the rest of the poem, so it feels like a loose end.
[quote]sixteen years have changed me
from creation to destruction,
but in my blindness
i became a healer.[quote]
I like this sentiment, but "creation to destruction" doesn't make sense, and in what way is the narrator blind?
Confusion
I honestly don't understand stanza 8. I understand how it sets up stanza 9, but I don't understand the stanza itself. What is the "healing" that you are referring to? Why is it warm and what does it have to do burning? I think it might be a metaphor for not giving up, but it took me a while to think of that and I'm still not sure.
Overall meaning
I am getting mixed messages from this poem. It starts out talking about how the patches and scars never really heal and how the narrator is ashamed of them. A good, solid idea.
Stanzas five through seven seem to say that the narrator's injuries are caused by letting people love them, and then when they are betrayed they keep the wounds open, remembering them. And eventually they heal, but as soon as someone else is kind to the narrator, they are opened again, and the narrator doesn't know how they can survive in this cycle. Fairly straightforward.
In the next few stanzas, the narrator speaks of how they want to help and heal others because of the pain they went through, and how they do it even at the expense of themself.
However, the last two stanzas imply that the narrator won't let their loved ones see the pain and the scars because they are afraid they will be rejected again. And that is how the poem concludes.
Overall, there are several really good sentiments in this poem, but all mashed up together like this they don't really work for me. The changing ideas make the poem feel like a disconnected and slightly meandering narrative. I'd recommend using only one idea or finding a way to weave them together more strongly.
Anyway, I did like this poem, especially your ending. I hope my review will be of use to you.
Actually, you kind of got it backwards. It's not that the narrator is struggling with other people loving them; it's that they're struggling with loving other people. It's difficult for them to love others because of the pain they've gone through, which is still evident in the scars on their skin, and they don't want other people to know how difficult it is.
As for "sixteen years have changed me/from creation to destruction/but in my blindness/I became a healer" -- this is the narrator talking about how they were originally meant to create, but now all they can seem to do is destroy. They were socially blind, and blind to their own limitations, and strove to become a healer despite the fact that they can only destroy instead of create.
As a whole, this poem is about trying to stay strong when parts of you are so very weak; if you want to look that strong to other people and protect them, you can't break, or they won't trust you any more, and that's the epitome of death for this narrator.
Another point of confusion -- "and never darken when I burn" is actually referring to sunburns. If there's a pale scar on someone's arm, and they get a sunburn, the scar tissue usually doesn't burn along with the rest of the skin. I thought the juxtaposition of "tan" with "burn" would help clarify that, but apparently not.
Thank you for your review, and I hope this cleared a few things up!
Yeah, that does make a lot more sense, and I can relate to the meaning even more now. Thanks for the clarification.
Happy Review Day, Arkhaion!
This poem is quite emotional and it sends a strong message across. I'm not really sure how to review this, just because I don't have any nitpicks. I don't think you planned this, but the different sized stanzas represent (to my eyes, at least) the patches of skin which you talk about in your poem. I also liked the first and last sentences, that the skin is torn and mended by stitches of steel. I don't know what else to say, keep writing.
Hello there
I find this poem quite deep and emotional , like i felt people can connected with this poem more than others. The only problem i have with the poem is capital letters , they aren't any (Sorry im like a neat freak when it comes to capital letters) Other than that i don't really see how you need to improve as this is a perfectly good poem.
I hope this was good feedback
Hope to see more of your work soon
-Angel ^--^
This is a free-verse poem, so the lack of capital letters was intentional. Please understand that this is a poetic choice.