What's the point of straining the smiles
if there's only so much tension before they finally crack?
Why do we keep pretending
in the effort of getting a real "happy family" back?
...
Your efforts to mend what's broken
with unkempt promises and the impossible power of time
only ruin our own chances
at dreaming of ever-afters
mutilated by the memories of our minds.
All your happy faces
plastered on with toxic glue
and stabbing attempts at closeness and comfort
just leave all of us more black
and blue.
...
But to let go completely
would be biting a ricocheting bullet
and I guess maybe
MAYBE
we really do love each other
since none of us can shoot it.
...
But this protection from inevitable pain we're all supplying
Won't keep any of us from locking ourselves away
and hiding
to discover a flooding relief
in relentlessly crying
and crying.
...
The self-sacrificial act for all
is just cutting ourselves
in the hopes of keeping the rest of us from bleeding.
All the torture we continually endure for one another
is nearly as agonizing
as finally allowing this grave march its proceeding.
...
We're not a happy family
after all the make-up sinks down into the porcelain baptism
and this repetition of foolish desperation
is merely an anti-depressant-induced sort of optimism.
...
Covering up the problem will never solve its sickening riddle
and it begins curing nothing
as every time you watch me
you keep wishing
that somehow, I could still be
little.
...
I don't want our crippled forgivenesses
or the walls we build
as forbidding fortresses.
I want the freedom of a family who knows how to fight.
I will teach my children
that sometimes by exposing what is wrong
you can actually make things right.
...
But if marriage is a cage
and a burden of endless battles
please, dear God,
never let me make it to the chapel.
Because this is not the life I'll live
when I've flown from home
to search out the world's adventures.
If I fall in love, I'll fall hard
so that the bruises might last as long as it takes
for me to finally
need some dentures.
...
When I love
let me do it
like crazy
so that there's never any need for bullets
not even maybe.
Not
even
maybe.
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138,209 Literary Works • 672,084 Reviews
Heya, wisegirl22 here to review your work. This poem was beautiful, but praise later.
I hope I see more of your works in the Green Room, and I'll definitely like this! Byezeez!
First of all, there is a rhyme scheme change here. I dunno if you meant to, if you didn't, but here it is.
"Your efforts to mend what's broken
with unkempt promises and the impossible power of time
only ruin our own chances
at dreaming of ever-afters
mutilated by the memories of our minds.
All your happy faces"
I think this doesn't make sense. Please revise/explain.
"finally allowing this grave march its proceeding."
Okay, "chapel" does not rhyme with "battle". Search it up if you want.
"never let me make it to the chapel"
I love the ending, especially the repetition and italics. I'm sure you got your point through.
-wisegirl22
Thank you for the constructive criticism. I'm very aware how nontraditional this poem is. I just wrote it in the frenzy of passionate emotions. It's more for spoken word than for the structural side of poetry.
Oh. Well, your welcome!
Addressing an issue as deep as this here makes you quite a profound person.
But I found when reading this, that you didn't really say anything new on the subject.
The repeated use of rhetorical questions just made the work sound "deeper" but it wasn't really saying anything original.
I felt that this idea had more potential:
This reminds me of a Carley Rae Jepsen (however you spell it) song, and it didn't really fit with the quite serious message in the work.
KEep writing!
Thanks for taking the time to read what I wrote and give a review.
okay a real review. Like I said before this poem is amazing, the emotion behind it is so real and heartfelt. The poem is long but this adds to its amazingness because in each stanza the reader is given a clue at the emotional turmoil the person is going through. You sow a lot of skill to your writing e.g
"What's the point of straining the smiles
if there's only so much tension before they finally crack?
Why do we keep pretending
in the effort of getting a real "happy family" back?"
In just four lines you showed the how strained the relationship is in this family, you also suggest that others do not see this strain but every once in a while the tension seeps through causing people to wonder, there is also the suggestion that something happened like someone betrayed anothers trust thats why they want the family before this betrayal back but it isn't working. YOU SAID ALL THIS IN FOUR LINES.
I love your flow of words in the second verse, it explains why the old family isn't coming back. The line "All our happy faces plastered on with toxic glue" is amazing imagery although you didn't say this I can almost imagine rotting faces (figuratively )behind those plastered on faces.
Then you show the hesitation, how they cannot hate because underneath there is a twinge of love there.
I would go paragraph to paragraph and would say about 50 other thins i love in this poem but i'll only say one more (so others can tell you the others 49). Your metaphor for bullets is amazing, I love your use of them. In the family the bullets would cause the illusion to shatter but later in life you want to take some of those bullets, to feel it pain *sigh* It's beautiful in a slightly messy way. Thank you for sharing this poem with the world.
Thanks you so much for reading it and for taking the time to give your very kind opinion about my writing. It was very cool reading your review, because I could see how easily you peered into everything I'd written about. You read between the lines and saw the things I didn't have enough energy or expression to show blatantly. Thank you, for being a part of my work and my growth as a fellow poet.
Your welcome. You're really talented and you should keep writing. The first thing I did when I read your poem is follow you even before the first comment I wrote. Keep writing, I'll be excited to see any of your work.
I love your poem. It is so passionate and heartfelt that I can't help but be drawn to it. I would continue to tell you the who, what, where, how, of it but i'm tired and need to sleep. I promise to do this properly next time but I couldn't without telling how much I love this poem.
Thank you, so much, for reading my words just before you laid down to dream. Thank you for telling me how they made you feel.