Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,023 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hey there! Plume here, with a review! I see this piece has been in the green room for a bit, so I figured I'd give it a review to bump it out!
You have such visceral imagery in this work that was so well-crafted. I especially adore the first stanza; right away, you hit the ground running with some punchy, powerful images. The continual motif of body parts throughout the poem (bones, muscles, teeth) lend themselves well to the discomfort and violence I assume you wished to create. I think the lack of punctuation also serves this piece well; it gave it that memory-like, hazy quality that comes from remembering. In this case, it works especially well, as it seems these memories are something the speaker does not wish to recall.
One thing that did beg questions in my brain was the identity of "he" in the second part of the poem. It seems to be to not be the speaker's father-- I wondered if perhaps it was the speaker themself? There's a lot of dehumanization of the narrator, what with the comparisons between plants and dogs and cake, and my initial interpretation was that you were attempting to introduce elements of depersonalization as well. If so, I wondered if there could be a clearer switch to that-- there are still some points you return to first person pronouns for the speaker. If the "he" is in fact someone else, I think it could be nice to perhaps provide a bit more insight into who "he" is, otherwise the poem gets a bit muddled. I would be curious to see an interaction between "he" and the speaker, since it seems there's no relationship established between them.
Specifics
This was such a good line. The implication of this sort of "off-screen" violence creates this sense of guilt and culpability, which I think works well.
Overall: nice work! I enjoyed dissecting this poem a lot, and I hope to read more of your work soon. Until next time!
the he was in fact the narrator! thank you for the review. yes this poem was about traumatic memories surfacing and insistent dehumanization.
I'm working off my phone so I hope this works
I read a section and I write my thoughts each paragraph I've written below corresponds with the way you have it broken up and the thoughts I have after I read them
Opening line—holy crap. I know that feeling too well. For me, it was my stepfather. Fearing him coming home from work, holding my breath at the sound of the door. My biological father didn’t hurt me—I preferred his house over my mother’s. It was the safer option.
The next section has me wondering—are you writing from the perspective of a canine? There's something about the way loyalty is expected, yet trust is shattered. That dynamic feels familiar, and I wish it didn’t.
Expecting blind loyalty but never feeling safe enough to trust yeah, I know that too. I wish I didn’t.
I wish it were easy to shut off the mind after experiencing trauma, but it’s always there, right at the forefront. No matter how much time passes, it lingers. Friend, I hope you got or are getting help. Trauma’s a bitch, and no one deserves to carry it alone.
thank you very much for your review!