My summer is a bucket list filled
with raindrop-dreams wishing they were oceans
and recently I fear swimming more than drowning
so I pour my rainy days over water-wrinkled-lips
and burn my toes on sandpaper beaches because
it goes better with my sunburnt-heart-aesthetic
and anyways I'm willing to sacrifice comfort
if it means I will feel alive.
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138,621 Literary Works • 672,181 Reviews
Hey, alliyah. I'm Alex, here to review another summer poem by you! So let's get started, before I begin to yap nonsense.
Personally, I've always been fond of summer so your poetry offered a very fresh opposing perspective on the season. The title is fitting and pulling through its hints at lyrical liberties. It perfectly encompasses the theme of the poem, suggesting that everything about the summer is a bad tune sung in no real harmony, making it more noise than music. I like how the poem is quite short in itself, yet there's so much to read between the lines that can be interpreted differently by readers- truly fascinating.
Firstly, I like how you use the phrase of a 'bucket list' as an imagery of an actual bucket! It's so predictably unique, almost like a idea taken shape out of a pun.
These lines reveal how the protagonist has small dreams (wherein metaphor of raindrop is used) in his bucket list and he wishes they were more ambitious or grand, like the ocean. It makes me think they're a simple person wanting to live for greatness, but lack the drive to pull them ahead of the crowd.
Decoding this gave me a fair amount of trouble. It is rather unusual for a fear, and thus clearly a distinguishable character trait. But what does this fear mean and what does it say about them? One guess would be they're afraid of succeeding and life more than pain and death and thus this line was an intended symbolism. It think it agrees to the lines that follow, capturing the protagonist's peculiar interests in choosing unnecessary sufferings to feel the sting of life and to experience the realism behind being alive. Odd as it may be, it sets a background for the summer distress they find themself putting up with.
This was specifically tricky.. rainy days to me invoke the imagery of gloominess for the protagonist to me. But what do water wrinkled lips signify here- figuring that out is the hard part. Is the person damping their summer dry lips with their tears from the seasonal depression. That sounds a bit of a stretch but I'm out of ideas. Does this part have no literal meaning and merely meant to be enjoyed poetically? If that's the case, it certainly succeed. It's a very melodious imagery to read.
Burning your toes in the heated beach sand to match your sunburnt (I'm guessing it means broken or hurt here?) heart sounds as insane and sick as it does badass and poetic. Hurting themselves is clearly one of the protagonist's hobby, or a way they use to cope up with the summer melancholy. It's clearly not their favourite summer and their self sabotaging actions just to feel something, justify it.
I like the careful choice of words here. Switch it up with ' I get to live' and the tone chances from irrational and dramatic to logical and sensical. You've drawn the fine line very well and delivered your intentions beautifully. The pain of summer makes the protagonist feel alive. They aren't sacrificing comfort for survival but entertainment.
Overall, the work sounds very stunningly poetic at the surface. But when you dive deep, the reader gets to discover a soul broken by having to live through a season that they don't adore. The protagonist associates summer with misery and harm. They haven't got much high expectations from this season lack the courage to swim through it (maybe means to enjoy their time here, as the hobby is a good pastime in summers to keep you healthy and distracted from the heat). They mention how it makes their lips dry and the beaches which feel no less rough than actual sandpaper, burn their toes. They claim the toe burns go along with their sunburnt heart and how they prefer hurt over pleasure, as it makes them feel alive in a season they'd rather not live. This poem tells two parallel tales, different perspectives for the varying types of readers. I find it so amusing how effortlessly you were able to achieve this. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and reviewing this short and sweet poem, hope to do this again sometime, perhaps soon.
Regards
Alex
Hey alliyah! Incoming review!
In the words of Anikan Skywalker, "I don't like sand. It's all coarse, and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere." Sand is so small that it can get into any crevasse we didn't even know we had. And it gets under our skin as such summer trends seem to do all the time.I see we have a lyrical poem here. Let me have a hand at it. Let's get on with the review!
Well, the thing I would critique would be the punctuation. The whole poem is a run-on sentence and I feel with lyrical either there is no punctuation, or there are periods at the end of thoughts and use commas. You use a period at the end that's seen before reading so I have this preconceived notion that this will be several sentences.
But that was my only complaint, let me praise your work here. Summer was and still is a season I dread. So I like seeing a poem about the not-so-nice parts of summer. I like the use of a bucket list in the poem. It's an odd phrase we use. And buckets can be used to catch the drips in a leaking roof. With each raindrop, there are things we want to do but will probably never will.
And my favourite imagery point was
But that's all I have for today! I hope you found some of it useful! I really really really liked this poem, even with how short it was. Keep writing! Anyway byeeeeeee<3
Thanks for sharing this poem full of imagery such as wrinkled lips, toes, a bucket full of teardrop dreams, sandpaper beaches, rainy days, oceans, a sunburnt heart. All of coarse have a meaning and deciphering that meaning makes the poem fun. It also serves to provide it with a depth it would otherwise not have and expresses volumes in a more concise way.
My understanding:
To me this poem describes a person who seeks out the ocean, even though being there isn’t pleasant, because its unpleasantness makes him feel alive. He has a list of things he wishes to accomplish and which he calls a bucket full of raindrop dreams. He wishes that these aspirations were more ambitious or oceans.
The speaker tells us he fears to swim more than to drown. So there seems to be a certain cowardice towards taking risks. Yet risks are necessary to break the boredom. So the speaker appears to be stuck in a perpetual state if hesitation.
It is called procrastinating, or putting things off for the future. The problem is that the future is constantly becoming the present and there we are again procrastinating when it arrives if we don’t change our strategy
To me a "sunburnt heart" is a heart that is in pain. So the situation is indeed a painful one. We are told that the speaker is willing to sacrifice comfort if it means feeling alive. That contradicts the fear of swimming or doing more for fear of failure. So it serves to describe this inner struggle which keeps the speaker hesitating and perpetuating his own boredom.
Rainy days I understood as unhappy days.
Sandpaper beaches as the discomfort that being in that situation was causing.
Thanks for sharing this very profound psychological insight. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Aley!
Just a couple of nit-picks, here, really: one, I don't think you need "anyways" in your second to last line - it feels off rhythmically, and it gives almost too much of a valley-girl-esque kind of vibe that I don't think you need? I mean, I'm already getting shades of the shallow overlaying something rather yearning, and it seems too flippant to quite jive. But, then again, if that was your intention, then it works perfectly ^^ But, that line itself just feels off - not the sentiment, but parts of the wording. I keep playing in my head with different ways to lead into it, and I'm not sure anything is working better (I played with "but I'm willing..", or leaving out "anyways" or leaving out both words and starting on "I'm willing..." and meh. Anyway).
The second bit that's bothering me is your third line - I think I read things through seven or eight times before I appreciated it? I'm not sure there's anything to be done? Though I think part of what threw me the first few times is "recently," because it's too many syllables for the space it's given? Like, if I read it with "now" or "lately," or leaving the word out entirely I don't trip in my head quite as much?
Lovely words, as always! <3
Oh thanks Mesh! I couldn't decide whether the extra word-fillers added to the "voice" of the piece, or if they were distracting. I sort of like how it makes the poem sound more casual, when the topic is veering on more intense (especially with the line about drowning) - which I hoped would add to the "dissonant" feeling. I agree with you about something being wonky in the beat and sound of that line with "recently" too - I'll see what I can do to clean that part up a bit.
Thanks again!
Battlestar just about covered it all, but I think maybe you could try adding some more words into this sentence, maybe add some variation and some new thoughts. I have a suggestion for your third line however. Try doing this and see how it works
My summer is a bucket list filled
with raindrop-dreams wishing they where oceans
fearing swimming more then drowning I pour my rainy days . . . .
I think that anyways could be replaced.
You had some nice words and beautiful imagery.
Personaly I think you write beutiful poetry myself.
I hope this helped.
I really love your imagery in this poem - it's so pretty! I also really like your use of the dash to group words together and place emphasis on certain concepts. You take a simple complex and paint a beautiful, complex image.
I don't really have any suggestions because I love it the way it is, but I guess you could experiment a bit with the ending punctuation for each line. I think you could separate your thoughts a bit more, and maybe you could add commas (or even dashes and semicolons) at the ends of some lines. I like how you write the poem as one long sentence and don't capitalize the beginning of each line, but I still think separation would be good.
For example, perhaps you could do:
My summer is a bucket-list filled
with raindrop-dreams wishing they were oceans;
and recently I fear swimming more than drowning,
so I pour my rainy days over water-wrinkled-lips
and burn my toes on sandpaper-beaches; because
it goes better with my sunburnt-heart-aesthetic,
and anyways I'm willing to sacrifice comfort
if it means I will feel alive.
I'm just experimenting with using semicolons to separate larger ideas and commas to separate different phrases within these overarching clauses. (If that makes any sense.)
I like it just the way it is, though, so don't feel like you have to do this! Can't wait to read more!
Thanks! I went back and forth about adding a few commas in there, I appreciate your feedback.