it's the fact that nothing ever happens gradually.
you wake up one day and your tomato plant is in bloom. walk down the street on a monday evening and your elementary school is torn down--minutes later the rain is pouring, it wasn't on the forecast. there's no time. there's all too little time, because one day everything just snaps. you pull the rubber band too hard and it breaks. stare at someone from across a cup of coffee and realize they're not in love with you anymore.
and we all have denial, don't we? your daughter will go to your school, she'll have your teacher who passed in his sleep two months ago. sit on a bench out in the rain, no umbrella. you take her hand again, try not to notice it's cold, pretend the circumference of your lips can convince her you're worth keeping.
it's the fact that life is quicksand. one moment it's your ankle, the next it's your lungs.
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140,258 Literary Works • 673,075 Reviews
Hi labyrinthine! Genevieve here to give a review on your work in light of Review Month!
I really love the concept, execution, and message of this poem. It's a message that many people can find themselves in, that realization of time moving by so fast. It's interesting that even though, in reality, things do tend to happen gradually, it's the realization and recognition of things that is sudden. The images provided in this poem are ones that do happen gradually, yet feel sudden because of that moment of realization, which is something almost everybody can feel a sense of relatability towards.
The second "paragraph" of this poem differs from the lines before it, but are used to bring life to the message of the poem. It's an image/scene that's filled with longing and the denial of change and time. It's disorienting, raw, and vulnerable, an image of coldness and sadness that elevates the emotional weight of this poem. Lastly, it's beautiful and well done, and fits perfectly with the context of this poem.
Prose seems very fitting for this poem, as it still reads very poetically and fits the tone and voice of the narrator. The beginning and ending line perfectly wraps this poem up in a bow with the repeated beginning phrase of "it's the fact that...", which brings it all together. The ending emphasizes the image of quicksand, and how fast it completely takes over a person, much like how time and the events of life seem to take us over without us realizing until it's done. Thank you for posting this and I hope to see you publish more works soon! God bless.
Hey labyrinthine!
I love this! The speaker wastes no time to set the scene: the immediate jump into the poem with "it's the fact" lured me in and kept me until the end.
I'm a huge fan of prose poetry. It allows the content to speak for itself without getting overwhelmed by formatting, and I feel like given the content of this piece it's fitting to strip it down to just the words with no line breaks/etc. It really puts the focus on the vulnerability of the writing.
What grabbed my attention was the seemingly unpredictable set of descriptions throughout. We're not really placed into a specific scene, and that actually plays well into the idea of time passing being explored. We get hints of the speaker's personal life - a tomato plant, elementary school, a potential love interest - which serve as examples of this. I like that there is a level of trust that the reader can empathize with the themes here; the array of imagery is not only poetic but helps strengthen the reader's closeness to the speaker.
I think what is most interesting to me is the paragraph introducing the daughter. It's a big jump, and the first major "character" that widens the scope of the poem.
This part is intriguing in that I'm wondering whether this is still about the daughter? It feels more intimate, with the senses of touch and imagery of hands/lips being involved. I feel like if it's moved on from the daughter, it could be in a separate section/paragraph? As of right now the run quite closely in sequence which can be misleading and also impacts the flow of this paragraph. But I still really like this sentence - "try not to notice it's cold" is so striking (perhaps suggesting death or separation from the passage of time?).
Then the ending, with "the next it's your lungs", is so beautiful. Haunting, almost as if a warning to the reader. And I like that you've repeated "it's the fact" here from the beginning - it brings it full circle. The idea that life moving on so quickly, in the blink of an eye, is being portrayed in a life/death manner is paralyzing. This is complemented by the previous series of descriptions you have (teacher dying, cold hand). The speaker is resigned to the fact that life keeps moving and its inevitability, and views this in a pessimistic and all-consuming way. The natural, conversational technique used throughout makes this a bit of an easier pill to swallow as the reader; kind of like a diary entry. It's a lot to take in and very vulnerable, but also relatable and simply human. I love it, thank you for sharing!
Calamity
Hey there, the Rebel here for a short review! I am trying to get in on the Tortoise Race for this month -- and I will be starting with your little poetic prose here! I am gonna first give you a sort-of paragraph-by-paragraph/stanza-by-stanza commentary before giving my overall thoughts. So, here we go!
An interesting start to this verse here, a sort-of 'axiom' for the verse, if you will. It runs in direct opposition to the concept of a gradient and plunges straight into a black hole.
That's quite a melancholic imagery of today's everyday life. This feels like it was directly inspired from real life -- as I often do the same myself. It's those little things that make you think of the most random things -- but in this case, the description acts as a little 'omen' for the next part.
Ah, there it hits...
The subtle melancholy that echoes the pain in the previous paragraph feels quite crashing -- like it hits. It hits you right there. The little descriptions. The omission of capitalisations. The imagery of a kiss that doesn't feel like one. Feels very real.
Can't really take anything for granted, isn't it? We have an idiom where I live, whose rough translation into an English version would be something like: "You don't really feel the teeth, till it's gone."
Closing Thoughts: This poetic verse here really felt like it was inspired from an event in real life. If true, I hope you are doing okay wherever and whoever you are in the world. Also, the prose is truly a self-indulgence in denial due to lack of perception of slow events -- that one doesn't quite realise till the breaking point.
For example, the Roman Empire was is decline since the death of Hadrian who knew that they were really overextended and corrupt, but no one really noticed till Commodus. The seeds of its fall were present since way back in the very beginning of the Roman Republic, but that's something you only discover upon introspection upon past events.
The sudden events only appear sudden even though their beginnings started from long ago. Unless it's a vehicular accident -- that's a different thing.
So, well, that was an interesting read. I hope you are okay, labyrinthine, and I hope you keep writing similar stuff!
Signing off,
The Rebel
P.S.: Welcome to YWS! :p