I'm Sorry

Hey, fandoms! clogs here for a review!

I think that this poem gets off to a really strong start with the crayon metaphor, but then it kind of starts to get more and more unorganized as it goes on. Everything up to these few lines is great:

Until you do.

You shatter

Right in front of me.

I feel like that's really where you get across the main point of your poem. That's the climax, but then after the climax, you have so many more lines that talk about reparations, and it just kind of gets repetitive and rambly. Try to look at your poem, and only use what you need. Since poetry uses so few words, it's good to not use anything that's unneeded. In this case, I think that a lot of what's after the quoted lines can go. I think that the reader can infer what happened to the "you" just by knowing that the crayon is broken, so you don't really need everything that's saying like "you're useless now" and everything. What I would keep is this part:

Some tape and glue

Won’t fix you.

There’s nothing left

To piece together.

It's very relevant to the extended metaphor, and it doesn't repeat what's been said before. I think it's a nice touch, and maybe even a nice note to end the poem on if you rephrase the last two lines a bit.

Speaking of the extended metaphor, I'd like to see it referred to more often. There's a whole world of wonderful crayon-related imagery out there that you can use for for this poem. I think it might spice it up a bit, give it some more life. Also, it'd be nice to see it worded a bit more subtly. "You are like a crayon" is kind of obvious, but if you sneak the metaphor in through imagery, then it might be a bit more... elegant, for lack of a better word. Hey, but that's one viewpoint. You don't have to; it's just what I'd like to see from this poem.

Here's a Knowledge Base article about imagery in case you'd like some guidance on this subject:

Imagery

I think you could maybe experiment with longer lines. It's a little choppy right now. You could also put this into stanzas to make it more organized. I think that both of these things would also help it be less rambling.

But I always push too hard.

The use of "always" here sounds weird to me. Maybe just remove it, or rephrase this line.

Overall, I really liked the metaphor in this, but I think it needs to be cleaned up and polished a bit more. Hope this helped, and keep up the great work!

Hey, I'm here to leave a quick review!

Wow! Crayon--that's a brilliant simile! I like how you focus on that image and expand on it, and how the short lines make the reading smooth and swift, and the wordings don't seem pretentious. I like the simplicity of it too, and I think that's what makes the message stronger.

Hard, mercilessly.

I do think this word choice seems to contradict the persona. He says he didn't mean to, but by saying he did it 'hard, mercilessly' implied he was doing it to actually get the result of the other's brokenness. It just seems to saying sorry is an excuse for his action because while it's true he didn't know the durability of the other, he also didn't push the other nicely.

Fragile and heartbreaking.

I would remove this line, because it seems like repetition. Before, the persona already implies that the other is fragile and heartbreaking based on him saying the other is 'broken' and 'useless'.

Some tape and glue
Won’t fix you.

Love this imagery. It gives us something else to focus on, and it rather enforces the imagery of crayon even more. I like what tape and glue represent too. Overall, this line expands the poem and extends the message it intends to deliver.

I'm quite confused about the judging part. It's not that I don't get what you mean, it's just that the word choice seems off. It's his miscalculation of the other's durability, and wrong choice of action due to that. Judging has connotation entirely different to what you seems to suggest. Perhaps 'gauging' is a better word as it is used for someone who wants to test something on a certain aspect.

Overall, this is a solid poem with consistent focus to the symbol of crayon. Perhaps it can be expanded more so that we can know what exactly happens, but hey! It's a poem. It doesn't need to be clear and complete. The message it delivers is enough for it to be relatable. Keep up the good job!