Young Writers Society

hi epithet!

welcome to yws! it's good to see you jumping into the community!

right off the bat, i'm loving this poem! there’s this aching, quiet pain running through it, but also moments of softness that make it feel so real. i love the tension between love and loss here, and how you’re able to say so much in so few lines. reading the poem, i was like woah !? there's so much detail in so little words, which is something that's incredibly hard to manage i think. it's not easy to do that!

your jasmine is my nettle-
effortlessly clinging to you,
potted in my mother’s old vase.

there’s something so haunting in this contrast of jasmine and nettle. jasmine, delicate and fragrant, and then nettle, which stings; it’s a perfect metaphor for this relationship! you’ve nailed that feeling of love being both beautiful and painful, and it's like you’re admiring the bloom but also wary of the thorns. there’s this sense of inevitability, but also fragility. so good. haunting. i'm weak for love poetry, especially love poetry that's like this. it's different, a good different.

my last breath is your first sigh.

this is another killer line! i love the way you flip that around here. it’s like two sides of the same coin, but they’re never quite aligned. ugh, that is bittersweet!

there’s a sense of longing here where one person is always giving while the other is just beginning to receive. there’s something tragic about it being “the last” tryst. it’s like they both know this love is temporary, but they’re clinging to it anyway. i think that's painfully relatable, and i could see so many people clinging to your words to find peace. it's human, if anything. this whole poem is a beautiful representation of that aspect of being alive. i feel things so deeply when reading this.

our first kiss was our last-
at least it felt that way.

okay alright this is DEVASTATING wait

it’s such a simple line, but it carries so much weight. you’ve managed to capture that fleeting moment where everything is so intense it feels like it can’t last. i wish you expanded more on their relationship though? i understand the point of succinct poetry, but there is no build up. there is no foundation this is built on. i think you're at a good point here already, but it's harder to jump into a poem without any foreshadowing. what is it about their love that makes it so forbidden? star-crossed lovers?

also, the line about the father and mother feels so sharp, but i want more. give us a hint of what those relationships are like! i think fleshing that out a bit more could add an even deeper layer to the dynamic. honestly, there is no real dynamic here; there is the faintest idea of the love between them, but it's too open to interpretation. there is nothing to hold, to grasp. that's the only thing i can comment on, really.

again though, this is hauntingly beautiful. i can't wait to see more of your poetry! it's great to see more poets around here, but maybe i'm biased!

best,
dissonance