Where were you

Oooooh, I like the idea here that you have with the whole falling in love with the final draft and yet not seeing the potential in the first drafts, haha. A very writerly image... I like!

One thing that I think might make it stronger is if you kind of... made it less generic, if that makes sense? It's ambiguous who is being called out, and one of the things I love about poetry is when poets are specific. There seems to be an implication here that the "where were you?" question has an answer that may be less flattering, and it might be fun to tweak the draft and make the call out more apparent.

So like... take your imagery where you talk about being trapped in the storm. You can make it like, "Were you on dry land/ watching me drown?" Or you know. Put more vigor and so you make the poem less passive aggressive and more accusatory, if that makes sense so it's punchier!

Anyway, cool poem! Absolutely adore the concept. Rough drafts have unpolished gems, but gems nonetheless!

hey there
this my review on your work


reading this poem hit me so hard. It perfectly captures that incredibly frustrating, hollow feeling of having someone suddenly pop back into your life to applaud your "progress" after they abandoned you. It’s like they’re treating the writer's healing journey like a spectator sport they were cheering for the whole time, when the truth is, they were nowhere to be found when things were actually falling apart.

I love how the poet calls out that hypocrisy—the way people absolutely love the polished, beautiful ending of a story but couldn't care less about the messy, painful drafts it took to get there.

Looking at the specific details, a few things really stood out to me

First, the contrast right at the beginning is brilliant. Pointing out how this observer admires the way the speaker talks and carries themselves now sets up a sharp, painful contrast with the grueling, lonely reality of the past.

Then there’s the repetition. Repeating "Where were you" over and over was such a powerful choice. It feels like a constant, heavy drumbeat throughout the poem, never letting the person the poem is addressing forget their absence.

you also did an amazing job painting a clear picture of what lonely healing actually feels like. Describing doubt sitting next to them like an "unwanted shadow" is exactly what those quiet, awful nights feel like. And the line about "smiling through storms no one else could see" is so beautiful because so much of our hardest struggles happen completely in secret. It is honestly bananas how people only want to pull up a seat and celebrate with you once the storm has cleared and the sun is finally out.

For the ending, stopping mid-sentence on "when I was......." is incredibly clever. It doesn't offer a neat, tidy conclusion because abandonment isn't neat. It just leaves you hanging in this quiet, empty space, and the poet makes the reader feel that sudden drop-off.


Ultimately, this poem doesn't just vent anger; it forces the reader to reflect on the real cost of growth and who actually earned the right to share in it. It’s a beautifully raw, unfinished thought that lingers long after you finish reading. Congratulations to the writer on completing this piece.

keep going....