i. you dyed your off-black chandelier layers indigo in october &
used your sugar spray in honour of daphne (you used to say that i was your angel sent by Apollo;
but i don't think he'd send an angel, if you know what i mean)
laurel wreath wrapped around your finger until you become another flightless bird
there was so much blood.
ii. twenty-one sparkler candles on your vanilla cake
you were sitting on the floor in the dark
your hips were aching & there was a amber rhapsody winding around your fingers. they danced, i remember that much--
swaying *mohiniyattam* to the sound of atticus' mighty bones
rolling creek running off your tongue, i heard from
someone somewhere that there was a sabre in your throat, & i called you to ask if it was true.
you didn't answer, not really, you just dipped your nails in a nautical twilight &
flipped off the lotus flower blooming in your chest.
& i think this must be a case study in longing.
iii. the silver's braiding itself into the space between us & so
for a moment i can believe that i'm intertwined with Artemis
herself
something about this sounds like you're playing viola on my
heart strings & that's why my blood won't flow right anymore.
so of course i say *oh my God* when i hear you singing mcr at the top of your lungs like nothing matters.
& does anything matter? i am intrinsically nihilistic, doubt is carved into my sodium spine
but you make me think that maybe i'm wrong about this.
iv. except come december, you dye your hair back to black
& there's mascara running down your face every day.
if i wore makeup,
mine would be ruined too.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
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.
141,246 Literary Works • 674,332 Reviews
Hai kazapult!!
I haven't review in ages, but I wanted to check this out for you because I loved it so much!! This is so lush and achey!! I love how this poem feels like devotion filtered through all of these ideas like myth, memory, bodily pain, and so on. I’m also obsessed with how the poem moves through seasons too, from October to December, like the relationship or fixation is changing color right alongside the beloved’s hair.
LOVE this opening so much!! It immediately complicates the tenderness with danger. The Apollo/Daphne reference is already loaded with pursuit and violence, so calling the narrator an "angel" feels very ironic here. Like, love is being mythologized, but the myth itself is not safe. That little aside, "if you know what i mean," is so good because it breaks the elevated imagery in this very human, conversational way. It feels like the narrator is trying to laugh something off that actually hurt them deeply.
The second section is so gorgeous because it is so sensory and strange!! I love that the beloved is constantly associated with movement, music, and water, but also with blades and silence. There’s this sense that the narrator is trying to ask a simple question ~ are you hurt? are you dangerous? are you okay? ~ but the beloved can only answer through symbols. That’s such a painful dynamic, and it makes the line "this must be a case study in longing" feel painful. It’s self-aware, but still completely helpless, which I love!!
Viola !!!
This is SUCH a gorgeous emotional shift!! It makes longing feel physiological, like the beloved is not just affecting the narrator's feelings but literally interfering with their body. I also love the contrast between the nihilism and the beloved singing MCR like nothing matters. That feels so real and specific!! It gives the poem this modern feeling beneath all the mythological imagery, which keeps it from floating too far away into abstraction, and I felt that worked very well with previous imagery.
My only comment is that you have a good amount of imagery that does not seem to develop. There’s Apollo/Daphne, Artemis, Mohiniyattam, Atticus, lotus flowers, nautical twilight, sodium spines, MCR, mascara… all of which are beautiful, but I wonder if making the thread more cohesive could make the devastation feel stronger. The strongest recurring motif to me is transformation through color: indigo, amber, nautical twilight, silver, black, mascara, etc. I’d love to see that become the spine of the poem even more, because the ending with the hair going back to black is SO perfect. Like, how can you make the imagery revolve more around that central idea? If, of course, you want it to!!
Ugh, love this though!! The ending is simple compared to the rest, and that’s exactly why it works for me. After all the gods and flowers and music, I am left with ruined makeup, or the imagined equivalent of it. So soft, so sad, so human, and soooo good. Amazing work!! :3
- Payton
oh my gosh
this is so long and i really appreciate you taking the time to do this & i'm afraid my response will feel dismissive or something in comparison so just wanted to say that it's not meant to beee
but seriously thank you so much for giving me this ackk
i really appreciate the constructive critism (and praise. who doesn't love praise XD) & just. thank you so much! xx
I really enjoyed this poem. It has a distinctive voice that intertwines the mythological with the mundane. I found the contrast between the elaborate imagery and the blunt statements, such as “there was so much blood,” to be striking. The final two lines stand out as especially poignant, revealing the shared pain between the speaker and the other individual.
However, the poem features a great deal of vivid imagery that occasionally competes for attention, which can obscure the emotional core. While the individual images are compelling, not all of them contribute equally to the poem’s overall themes. The strongest moments occur when the imagery directly reflects the speaker’s relationship with the other person. To enhance the clarity and impact of these moments, I would consider trimming some of the more decorative imagery. The key emotional revelations would then have more space to resonate.
Thank you for this read.
no thank you so much for the feedback
genuinely appreciate it so much that you took time to do this <33 i will definitely try to incorporate it!