Young Writers Society

me when I take a 3 month hiatus and come back just to read this. tragically beautiful as always.

I wishhhh I could write like this!!

I love how short the poem is but it provides such a strong message. You have a very strong vocabulary and talent.

Would you mind telling me the main point of the poem? I feel like there are many ways to interpret this!

This is such a strong poem. Love the unexpected turns and unexpected imagery pairings ... like "headlights / honey-colored & full of blood" !!! I really enjoy reading your poetry!

envy! hello!

i always love when you post something, but i feel like this poem lacks a lot of the traditional elements of your poetry. it isn't a bad thing, but it's new, you know? i think that quintessential envy poetry is very nostalgic and full of longing; you use a lot of comforting and familiar imagery in unexpected ways. this, however, feels very different to me. a deer in headlights is a poetic image, but it is very bleak and foreign relatively speaking. perhaps this is a new era?

honey-colored & full of blood,
an old man would call you a trophy kill,
the tick in your skin is a witness

i want to hold my heart
in the palms of my hands but i cant
so i will settle for yours instead

like moths trapped in lace curtains,
the sun is burning me up
its so bright
i think i wish i could die

Hi envy!

I was intrigued by the title of this poem, so I thought I'd stop by with a quick review for you.

Strengths
I LOVE when poems - or any sort of art, for that matter - take a cliche and give it an unexpected twist. We've heard of the "deer caught in the headlights" a thousand times, usually with a focus on the deer as the subject. But turning that around and making the headlights the subject is genius. On top of that, the headlights have a dead bulb, which means the deer is probably not particularly visible or "caught in the headlights". I've read the opening two lines at least half a dozen times and I'm a little bit more obsessed each time.

You do a great job of evoking a strong emotion without explicitly stating the emotion in question. I think it can be really easy to fall back on simply saying outright what is going on in a poem as it happens, but that can actually work against you and sort of distance the reader. Being able to show - instead of explain/talk about - an emotional state or relationship is an important skill and you do it very well! I thought the second last stanza was especially strong at this.

And of course the imagery throughout is just so satisfying. "honey-colored & full of blood" and "like moths trapped in lace curtains, / the sun is burning me up" are both top tier descriptions.

Weaknesses
It isn't entirely clear how the start of the poem connects to the end of the poem? I can easily interpret the first four stanzas as being about a somewhat tumultuous/unhealthy relationship between the narrator and the person being addressed throughout the poem. It seems like the narrator is missing something in their relationship with themself ("i want to hold my heart / in the palm of my hands but i can't") and so is projecting this onto their relationship with the "deer". I read the first stanza as the narrator being self-absorbed to the point that they are not actually paying any attention to the deer. The second stanza seems to objectify the deer ("trophy kill") and makes it clear that the narrator doesn't really value the deer for who they are, but rather for what they can give.

The last stanza though? How does the sun come into this? Why does the last line suddenly pivot to the narrator wishing they could die? That feels like a big leap from where we were at one stanza ago. Perhaps you were aiming for a jarring finish - that is certainly a technique that can be used in some poems - but to me it just came across as a bit rushed/unrelated.

Overall
This was a very enjoyable and interesting poem to read! I love how concise and clean your language is - people (me <.<) can sometimes get really enthusiastic about using excessive adjectives/adverbs, but you do a great job of using the most precise and succinct language possible and it makes the poem flow smoothly. Visually, too, it looks very clean with relatively consistent line length and short stanzas. I thought you create a really interesting narrative and do a great job of using evocative, emotive imagery. Overall, really well done. :)

~Hijinks