Helium

Hi there, shaon! Welcome to YWS!

I'd like to start this review by saying what a cool song this poem would make. Like, seriously, the second-to-last stanza could be the chorus. The tone and general rhythm and mood of this poem is spot-on for a song. I wanna hear this set to music now, dangit. XD

Musical quality aside, this is a pretty awesome poem. You make a good use of metaphor throughout, and your language is all very vivid. It's very well-written, so I'm going to dig deep and be really nitpicky here.

People have loved deeper than me,

People have worked harder than me,

But none long for freedom more than me,

Not even a prisoner of war,

Not even a harlot in greed.

I love how you start the poem by making these comparisons. It tells us a lot about the narrator without actually stating anything. The lines that I didn't care as much for were the last two. Saying "not even" sounds like a phrase in a child's poem. I don't think you should drop the comparison, but you could rephrase it. For instance, do something like

People have loved deeper than me,

People have worked harder than me,

But of prisoners of war and harlots in greed,

None long for freedom more than me.

I quite like that. *pats self on back for screwing with your poem* You don't have to do that exactly, but something along those lines would be cool.

Today I’m enamoured,

By your colours dear flower,

They are so bright that they blind me,

But today which is butterfly will change into bird,

My love for freedom is that absurd.

There's one technical nitpick I need to touch on before anything else:

There shouldn't be a comma after "enamoured".

That is all.

No, there's more. First of all, I love the use of "enamoured" in the first line. It just has this poetic quality to it.

Also, the second line disrupts the flow of the poem. I would recommend changing it.

Now, the third line is interesting. I'm wondering if there's any symbolism behind it. I know that the bird is a symbol of freedom, which relates back to your first stanza, but is the butterfly a symbol for anything in particular? If it's not, then you could change it to an animal that represents captivity to add to the awesome symbolic aspect of your poem.

The fourth line is cool. I would never have thought of "absurd" for a rhyme, although I'm not sure why the love is absurd. :/ Maybe you could shed some light on it.

Don’t wonder of my pain,

Don’t trace my blood-lines,

They’re all in a tangle with a web full of lies,

To me they’re delusions,

To the world they’re real,

Leaving and forgetting is a promise and a fear.

The first line rubs me the wrong way, because of the word "of". You could change it to "about" or something else, to make it flow more naturally.

The second line is good, although I thought that "bloodlines" was one word. I like the imagery that the third line offers. It makes me think of a spider web (I'm so original, I know). I would reword the line to "They're all tangled up in a web full of lies," though. For rhythm's sake, y'know. I'm still thinking about that music.

The fourth and fifth lines confuse me. As far as I can tell, "they" is the bloodlines and the pain. Why are they delusions to the narrator and real to the world? I don't really understand. It seems to me it would be the other way around. Maybe you can clear this up in your poem.

The last line is perfect in every aspect. It's great rhythmically, it makes perfect sense, and it's a great conclusion to the stanza in general.

I don’t need connections or boundaries or links,

I need the most to stretch my cramped wings and sing,

I have salvation in peace and complete detachment,

Want to be free from parasites and attachments.

In the first line, the use of "x or x or x" sounds a bit childish, like the "not even" dilemma in the first stanza. I would change it to "connections, boundaries, or links".

The second line is good, especially since it goes back to the bird metaphor. The use of the word "cramped" is a bit choppy, so I'd recommend changing it.

I'm just going to skip straight to the fourth line here since the third line is good You sort of break the rhythm here by not starting the line with "I". Also, the use of the word "parasite" is odd here. Does it have something to do with the bird? It just seems a little out of place.

Now, onto the chorus fifth stanza

They speak of people as helium balloons,

Unclutch the strings and watch them bloom,

You can await their return when the helium escapes,

You can have them when from solitude they ache,

You can grab them back when from hardship they return.

This stanza is just such a perfect metaphor for everything else you say in this song poem. It's so original and it ties everything together so perfectly that I'm in awe. This is why it would be such an awesome chorus. I'm not joking when I say you should experiment with turning this into song lyrics.

Now, in the first line, who exactly is "they"? Normally, when "they" is used in a context such as this it makes me think that it's an old saying, but this isn't. The use of "they" is a bit unwarranted here, I think.

The second line makes a great rhyme, but I'm not sure that balloons exactly bloom when you let go of them. They're free, sure, but maybe "bloom" isn't the word to use here. Which is a shame, since it's such a nice rhyme. I also think that instead of "them", you should use "me" so that the stanza is referring to the narrator. It makes it more personal and fits better that way.

The third line is great, no problems there, except change "their" to "my".

The fourth line is worded a bit awkwardly, especially the phrase "from solitude they ache". Surely there's a way to word this so that it's not awkward, but you can keep the lovely rhyme? Also, change "them" and "they" to "me" and "I".

The fifth line suffers the same problem with the phrase "from hardship they return". My recommendation to fix this is also the same: Just try to reword it, or use a different phrase. Again, "them" and "they" can be changed to "me" and "I".

Ah, the last stanza! I didn't quite mean to turn this into a line-by-line review, but hey, I wanna be helpful.

But my strings are nothing but closed containers,

My heart is nothing but palpitating pain,

My soul is nothing but freedom and desire,

My mind is nothing but righteousness on fire,

I’m not a balloon but helium,

I’m not human, I’m wind, I’m air.

Awesome. It's a great final verse stanza to your song poem. I would recommend having the chorus one more time after it, maybe. I honestly can't do a line-by-line examination of this because there's nothing I can see that needs fixing. My one, tiny nitpick is to not use the word "but" to start the first line, since you use it again in the same line. Other than that, wow. I'm speechless. I can totally imagine this being an epic closing to a song.

You, sir/madam, are a true poet. I applaud you for writing this amazing thing. I know I pointed out a lot, but that's because I was being really nitpicky. It hardly detracts from the epicness of this poem. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, and keep up the great work!