I am indie music and too much mascara
and unkempt, tangled hair,
the cheap scent of teen-clothing store perfume,
ink-stained fingertips, blotches of paint,
and denim that has seen better days.
Someday, I'll kick my coffee habit,
but for now I crave the coffee shops,
the quiet, secluded, smoky corners,
and the startled glances at my haunted face
when the ladies say
Don't look over there. It's a freak.
never out loud until they've scuttle past into the restrooms,
but they do.
I sip my caffeine and scribble and
always
steel my eyes when anyone remotely friendly glances my way.
I used to be
Don't stray from the light.
Don't gather the darkness.
But when you bite your lips long enough,
blood will sprinkle,
and you're thrown headlong into darkness,
willing or unwilling,
with the taste of copper at the back of your throat.
You sketch skulls instead of hearts
and you wear more black than you used to without conscious realization.
And Dad says,
Pull your bangs out of your face, kid. You look like a stoner.
Your lips twist wryly,
because he's right.
You've never been higher.
not on aspirin, or drugs,
or even the rubbing alcholol from the medicine cabinet,
but on self-inflicted obsession,
and the chalky sounds of your pencil carving paper.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,855 Reviews
Hi Rules!
)
I, like Lily, really liked the opening of the poem. It painted a clear picture in my head, especially the first two lines - I was so enamoured with them that I actually felt the rest of the stanza was a bit redundant already. Or, somehow it felt like the rest of the first stanza, while as charmingly colourful as the start, dragged the nice start off a little. I don't know if this makes any sense to you.
The occasional repetitions - "coffee" in #2 , "darkness" in #4 - disturbed me a little. They're not the kind of things that would ruin the whole thing, but they stood out in a less pleasant way, so you might want to consider doing something about them.
Another thing that disturbed more than the previous one were the exceedingly long lines almost throughout the whole poem. I think they're overall too many words, and I believe you could create the same effect using much fewer words (unless the effect you were going for is the dragging length
Those are the main things that came to my mind. Overall, I like your way of using the language and painting the pictures, as I mentioned earlier. Thanks for the read!
Demeter
x
Hi there, creativity! The names lilymoore since I don’t believe and I have been introduced (though I may be wrong; who knows?).
Oh well! On to the review!
First off, I’ll say that your title caught me from the very start. I don’t particularly know why but it just did which is good. Maybe it was a combination of your avatar and the title or perhaps the fall I took really did do some damage.
I will say off the bat that you have an absolutely fantastic first stanza. The language is fantastic and the rhythm that they create is wonderful on my ears, err well, my eyes. Great job!
The word “coffee” feels very repetitive in these two lines and it doesn’t help that when you look at them, they’re both sitting on top of each other. I don’t know what it is but for some reason it draws my eye to it in all of the wrong ways.
To me, the first line seems a smidge too long with “past” there. The second line on the other hand seems to short. Something a bit longer like “but I’m sure they do.” That’s just an opinion, not so much a criticism.
The entire third stanza on the other hand seems clumsy. Ending the first line on “and” hangs there uncomfortably when it’s only fallowed by that short little “always” I think mostly because the whole list lacks any sort of parallelism. (You can learn more about parallelism if you click that link.) The last line also seems too long.
The italicized bits really don’t seem to make much sense right away, at least when I first read them they didn’t. I think part of it comes from you saying “be” instead of “say.” Also, perhaps a comma or a colon would help identify the italicized bits as belonging to the first line (because the two just don’t seem to go together). (I just noticed that I use parentheticals way too often.)
I’m not super impressed with the fourth stanza but it’s not bad either. It’s just not outstanding I guess in comparison to the really good parts of the poem. I would consider just seeing where you feel you can improve on the stanza.
I love the last line, mostly because I don’t think people don’t use the phrase “pencil carving paper” or even anything remotely similar. It’s actually rather enjoyable to hear something I’ve personally never heard so thank you.
Overall, this is a really good poem and I’m very glad I took the time to read it. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or leave a note on my wall or something like that.
~lilymoore