I don't need anyone but the sun.
I'll knit glucose, convert the sun to sugar,
and make my fractions improper to make them
proper again.
The blanket of night disperses,
lifting from the sky.
The moon and stars are cavities behind pressed lips,
the gaps between clamped teeth.
The lampshade muffles the light;
filtering a scream, turning it dim
until it is but a whisper.
Slender hands hold onto a wishbone
snapped between finger and thumb.
I only wish for what is definite,
so that I know that my dreams will come true;
death, sleep, and eternity.
The faint glare of traffic-lights
rebounds off the street.
The pattern of lights repeat from the top.
It is always go,
go slower,
stop;
but I never stop.
Fingerprints etching onto my skin,
stencils of the hands that mold my limbs.
Body made of clay.
They say I'll be stuck in my old ways,
by the time I'm twenty-three.
Set my body in the kiln
so I can be set in stone.
Letting the tips of my feet touch
the thin boundary lines.
Society stands huddled on a large plateau,
kicking bodies down into the jagged rocks.
It's easier to fall than it is to ascend.
Gravity pressing down on my shoulders,
to make my face meet the dirt.
When the Optometrist asks,
"Better or worse?",
I will stay silent.
I want to try and get better,
but it feels like I'm getting worse.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hello.
I don't feel that this really gelled. It starts off with a plant-and-light metaphor, then transitions to a night sky metaphor (with hints of light), then artificial light... and everything kind of floats until the progression of stone in the two before last and before last stanzas, with the very last one floating again.
Which is a shame, because all of these are beautiful stanzas with tons and tons of potential. But from the title I was expecting to have a slightly more obvious progression of metaphor, especially with the first two being so built up on each other and the title. I thought we were going to get a forest lifecycle type thing because the poem set up photosynthesis and it ties into converting... then I don't.
And in a sense I can see a transition, but the transitions are so tiny— fingers to fingers, wish for death to playing with a car crash— that they're hidden in the severe changes surrounding them. There's a line between having a poem make you think to the point you remember it, and make you think too hard that you want to abandon it, and this is toeing the line.
Mostly what I'm hung up on is how I don't see the title reflected in the poem. I don't see the conversion from misery to remedy until this starts talking about stone, which makes the two middle stanzas basically irrelevant. But at the same time, I can see why you put them in there if I really think about it.
So I guess I just wish this had a thread I could pick up on. Right now, the poem feels like multiple ones, each one beautiful in its own right, but nothing really cohesive.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Thank you for the review!
I love how detailed this is. I especially like "slender hands. . .snapped between a finger and a thumb". The only criticism I have is that I cannot see the big picture of the poem very easily, if there is one (it's not necessary to poetry, obviously). It seems more like a collaboration of images, flickering memories, and feelings, which I like a lot. Great work!
Thank you so much! There isn't really a big picture to this poem, but it does have some general themes tossed around as usual. I don't really want to say it was about healing, but that's what the last stanza ended off with.
This is deeply worded. I could not feel connected to the previous lines as I kept reading down. But here I read some very meaningful thoughts. This is quite creative and the vocabulary too is pretty awesome.
Thank you so much!