there has to be a word for it: feeling so far from home with my heart stretched out across miles and miles and so many places
i wish i had a word for it, because i am not homesick. i’m hungry; sick and sated by too many faces.
when will i come home? you looked at me odd when i changed my address. i never thought a journey could hurt this much and still be necessary.
pin through a needle - squeeze me until i fit. take my thread across miles and miles and tie through the spaces. maybe the hole in my stomach will mend by then
i think i’ll call it breaking. in the way a mother breaks in two with a child in the womb. full and too full, always empty, always loose. breaking, but not broken, against my will still making room
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140,258 Literary Works • 673,074 Reviews
hi sound!
i've been loving your poetry lately!
i think this poem is both grounding and unsettling at the same time. the language is deliberate, definitely tactile. the contrast between fullness and emptiness, hunger and satiation, is so visceral, almost painfully so. i've never really thought about those ideas being used poetically, but i really love it! there is something timeless about breaking and mending when it comes to describing emotions.
what struck me most about this poem is the way you play with the idea of home. it's a theme that has been written about for ages, but it's really easy to create something innovative with it. like your line in particular reframes your longing into something deeper and more primal. it's universally recognized that connection itself can be both nourishing and depleting, but it's really different when you have to face that in writing. the tension is absolutely incredible!
i wish you explored the depth of that hunger more though. it's something that is so essential to the narrative of the poem, but i feel like the idea disappears after that line. the poem might be about the metaphorical breaking more, but i feel like hunger and being broken complement each other very well. the dynamic of being sick and sated by faces just a more figurative approach.
i love this ending sooo much! i think it carries the weight of resilience without sugarcoating the pain. there is something very cathartic about moving on, even if moving on itself is not always a pleasant experience. the guilt and grief is very normal. displacement is jarring. the imagery is very visceral here too, which is hard to read but in a good way. especially the image of the pregnant mother, and i think that has to represent something with losing a feeling of being nurtured.
though, i am not sure what the emotional undercurrent is here. is there a sense of resolution? of acceptance? it feels very open-ended in that way, but i think that could definitely work intentionally.
anyway yeah this is haunting. absolutely haunting.
best,
chi
Thank you, chi <3 I always appreciate your thoughtful feedback and am thankful you've enjoyed my poetry.
Soooound
This is so good. Your imagery and similes hit home so well. I love the use of thread the reconnects to the stretching in the first lines. The likening of a child separating in the womb is such a visceral and apt way to describe breaking off from something that isn't bad, but it is life-changing and painful in some ways for both parties. Also bringing the thread back again to mend the hole in the stomach.
I do think it's interesting that the first stanza implies the mc has made these decisions on her own for her betterment, and by her own actions has spread herself thin, but the second stanza becomes much more passive, "squeeze me" putting the ones on outside forces for having done this to them vs "I changed my address".
I'm working on a short story about a set of characters trying to run away from their problems, and this seems to hit on that theme that sometimes getting away isn't the sort of relief and remedy we think it is. And sometimes it's necessary but it creates different hardships, perhaps deemed better, but certainly not easier.
The one nitpick I have is in your last line. "Always empty, always lose". It seemed like.maybe you meant loose? My brain just struggled going from full, too full, and empty (all adjectives) to lose which is more of an action or consequence. It also didn't seem to match the comparison pattern of full - too full, breaking - not broken.
But I do really like this. I think it hits on nostalgia, regret, perseverance, longing, misunderstanding and weariness, and this time of year (with cold weather and dormant plant life, little sunshine and long hours, and for a lot of people coming off of seeing family foe holidays or maybe not seeing them because of the same reasons the mc got a new address) it hits pretty deep.
~ Messy
Bah, thanks for catching that typo. ;-; Thanks for reading and reviewing - I am glad you liked it and it resonated with you.
Yikes not as many as I had typing this on my phone
Haha, no worries. I understood it still! YWS on mobile is just that way