Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and violence.
This is a spoken word piece, so the line breaks and such are more about breath breaks and rhythm than anything else.
You said the bridges I burned
Could have held up my world.
We both know that’s not true.
Towers of broken pottery,
With concrete made of sticks and stones and all those breaking bones,
We trusted those trusses to hold up our outstretched hands
just long enough,
And they did.
We made it.
We graduated from hard to a whole new world of harder,
That bridge was never built survive it.
It was an emergency structure,
Slapped together with dulled razor blades and
The felled timber of our spines,
It was a mutual lifeline.
Someone to wrap your wounds with soft shoulders,
To give silence to your noise,
To make sure that you’re still breathing.
Codependent…maybe.
See,survival is not always healthy but it’s still survival
And it was so fucking necessary.
We learned to communicate in smoke signals
And vultures circling,
But that was it,
We never learned to speak equally,
Accept responsibility,
Volatile is the only word for it.
When we weren’t trying to kill ourselves,
We were trying to kill each other,
But there are some kinds of violence you can’t talk about,
This pathway between people was being used to ferry blame,
Back and forth,
Not feeling the slump of each others shoulders as we did so
The weight of that much hurt couldn’t
Rest on either person alone.
But you felt it did.
Or I felt you felt it did.
Or you felt I felt it did or
It wasn’t either of our faults,
It was just doomed from the beginning,
I don’t know.
But I do know that I could only speak so many apologies before
My tongue started to resent it,
Turning to stone,
To flint,
Sparking discontent,
Making words into torches,
White hot honesty lit that fucking bridge on fire.I turned it to ashes.
I danced in the smoke and marked myself warrior,
The battle was done, it was time for healing.
So I took scorched hands in search of safe waters,
Safe waters whose waves had once matched the cadence of your laugh,
And I realized charcoal as a way of staining you.
Walking away from a persondoes not mean you get to walk away from your shared history,
You still have to hold that,
Just now, you have to hold it alone.
But that is a burden I can live with,
Better than giving up my vocal cords to fix what’s already fallen.
So I’ll take responsibility for burning the bridge,
But you may want to look for the source of the gasoline.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
138,124 Literary Works • 672,071 Reviews
This honestly made me feel so much. Knowing that a relationship was so dysfunctional that the people wanted to die and never really got along unless they were stoned. For me it was hard to read the following part.
Accept responsibility,
Volatile is the only word for it.
When we weren’t trying to kill ourselves,
We were trying to kill each other,
But there are some kinds of violence you can’t talk about,
This pathway between people was being used to ferry blame,
This part really got to me because it shows the most imagery, and I am a firm believer that writers write what they know. So, if something like this happened to you... I am so sorry.
This is Nikayla here dropping in for a review on Review Day!
So I'm not going to be focusing on the overall aesthetic of the work, or how it looks in text. That's since this is a spoken word poem and I'll be judging this a little different. What I especially enjoy about this poem when ignoring how it looks when laid out on paper and instead read aloud is the imagery that helps the reader imagine the scene that's going on.
The imagery does well in creating the atmosphere especially with the bridges and the images that accompanied the beginning parts of the poem. What I do have to say about the poem is that the flow at points can be a little off-putting. Another part that I'm a little off-put by is the imagery, or at least some images are a little too odd for me to imagine. Here's a couple lines in particular that were pretty obscure, but I have to admit, unique to me:
An emergency structure 'slapped together' is mainly what I'm talking about here, and with dull razor blades? The last two lines here aren't as bad with the first two here though. I don't know what it means to be an emergency structure slapped together with dull razor blades? What does that even mean? What did you even intend it to mean? It's a little too obscure for me to be able to comprehend. I'm not saying that you can't use these, because you totally can and you could probably rock it too, though it does need some polishing and thought taken to it.
The last aspect of this work that I wanted to touch on is some of the unnecessary words that I found throughout this poem. They're usually at the beginning of lines and are words such as 'so', 'but', 'and', 'because', and 'to'. These words usually aren't needed and just clog up the flow. This shows in the second to last line particularly where I don't think you need the 'so' in from of the rest of the line. It serves no purpose other than to fill up space. Other than what I've mentioned here, I thought this was pretty solid and the flow is usually smooth enough! Nice job on that.
If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.
Hey there bluebird, Becca here for a (long overdue) quick review.
I loved this piece so it was very hard to review and come up with constructive criticism. I will try.
This poem is definitely fused with a lot of emotion as well as beautiful imagery. I think my favorite parts were when the narrator said they pair was communicating through "smoke signals" and that they "ferry blame" to each other. I liked smoke signals because it's the most ancient and primative method of communication and also a great image. And I liked Gerry blame because I rarely see ferry used as a verb and that was such a beautiful image thinking about blame being ferried.
I though the line that started "someone to wrap you wounds..." was a little disjointed from the rest of the piece, specifically because immediately before it you reference and "it." So basically I would either include some kind of transition just to make clear the distinction between an it and a someone.
I liked the line about killing each other/killing ourselves but I actually think it would be more effective if it were reversed. What if it were kill ourselves/kill each other. Have a listen to "no children" by the min rain goats, maybe you'll see what I mean.
I loved the part "cadence of your laugh."
I thought as far as slam poem goes the ending works since it's related to the rest of the piece and also dramatic.
Overall great job, all suggestions are up to you as the author. Keep writing! I hope to read more of your stuff!
This is wonderful!