Nothing Sweet
The first time I cut myself
I felt like a cliché.
Like I was playing a game
where the world was the cat and I was the mouse
Like—smile, smile
because the world always gets better
when it can see your yellow teeth.
When I cut the second time
I forgot what it felt like to be loved
But I knew—I knew what it felt like to lose
to be lost in my own head
never quite sure how to get out
I would wish there were streetlights in
the cavities of my thoughts
or at least a street where lamplight
could guide me back into reality
back to the trust that my blood had all but washed away.
And the third time I cut
I hated myself
I was like the dark side of the moon
Where I knew I knew I could
I couldn't even though
to every moon there are a hundred hundred stars.
The fourth time I cut—well
I can't remember how it felt
but I remember the way it looked
I was pale and lukewarm
and I knew beyond a doubt that I had shrunken
my back was arched
I was a living cliché, the walking dead.
But I remember that piano playing inside of me
waning as the cutting kept going
kept going—it keeps going
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140,085 Literary Works • 672,996 Reviews
Okay since everyone else covered the grammar stuff I will move one to other stuff. I liked the poem. I know exactly how you feel. In each line I sensed- wow-- some one gets me! I really think you did a nice job pulling out my emotions and capturing an image for the audience to picture. Over all the poem was dramatic and I loved it. I hope you actually don't cut. And if you do-- please stop. Any who-- keep writing!
Molly-
Knight Dragon, here to review on this wonderful Review Day!
Technical:
"But I knew—I knew what it felt like to lose", you should put a comma after "lose" [that comma is outside the quotes and is the one I put there for the review].
"to be lost in my own head
never quite sure how to get out"
The first line needs a comma and the second one a period.
"Where I knew I knew I could
I couldn't even though
to every moon there are a hundred hundred stars."
This is why punctuation matters. What do those lines even mean? Without punctuation to guide my reading, I don't know how they flow. Right now they're all one long string, like someone took out all the links in the train cars and smashed them all together.
You did a good job of capturing the emotions and experiences of cutting. Good job on that, but just go back through and add some punctuation to help readers follow the flow a little better.
Hope this helps!
Knight Malachi for team blue on Review Day. As well as Green Room reviews.
When I cut the second time
I believe it should be:
"When I cut myself the second time"
Just a small error that can be easily fixed. or it's on purpose?
Anyway, I like how you used the double-sided metaphor of the cutting. It works well . . . no, perfectly! Very good free-verse writing; it all went together very nice, and i saw no mistakes. Keep it up!