you whisper to the stars at dawn and ask them to remember your name. there’s heard a scratching against the sky, as you are placing crinkled hope into the galaxy’s folds, praying that at least someone will remember who you are. you beg the stars to memorize the rhythm of your heartbeat you’re forgetting, so they can remind you of its pattern when you no longer remember how many seconds fit in between each beat. you want somebody to know you. because sometimes it’s easier to be held when you no longer want to hold on.
but is it too late for someone to remember your name when -
you regret flushing it down the toilet. watching it swirl into overflowing sewers along with your breakfast. trying desperately to plumb it out as soon as you realized your skin was starting to shred away like paper, falling into a blizzard of lost letters, and you could see the porcelain bones of your fingers waiting to be snapped. even the skeleton you used to hide in is beginning to crumble under all of the ‘i am not okay’s that never left your tongue, so nothing is familiar to you anymore. maybe they will hang your bones in a museum and you would actually be worth something. they would point their unforgiving fingers at your misshapen figure and ridicule you with their eyes, but at least you would be looked at. you would be seen.
you regret letting your friends tear at your name like vultures at a carcass. ripping it apart into pieces of cloth they can use as a flag to raise whenever they need help. using it to snuff out their cigarettes so you have circular burns dotting your body like freckles, your skin a lit up ferris wheel. stitching it into doormats for them to step on. taking away so much of you that you realize you don’t have enough of you for yourself.
you regret letting your name evaporate. lost in some rainy day, drowned in some ocean you don’t know the name of. there is so much of you missing that not even your bones have something to hold onto. you’ve started to eat whip cream for all your meals, because it’s the only thing your stomach won’t reject, and you need something to replenish your parched cells. but they die anyway, and it's a little funny to die from within when you've always been scared of snake bites and forgetting how to swim. your body used to be your home, but now it’s becoming your coffin.
it probably is too late for the stars to remember your name. the hope you tentatively placed in the galaxy has sunk too deep into some forgotten fold. your skeleton has given up on you, no longer wanting to be armour to something that doesn't want to fight. your heartbeat is too irregular for anyone to memorize. you don't want to hold on. and no one wants to hold on to you.
you take what's left of your name and use it as a tombstone.
Points:
Time spent:
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.
125,008 Literary Works • 672,827 Reviews
Holy freaking cow. I'm going to be honest and let you know I didn't have super high hopes for this because of the title, but this IMMEDIATELY dashed my expectations and. Wow. Your usage of figurative language is so creative and unique - your extended metaphors (and some normal metaphors as well) are absolutely superb, and you've managed to get your point across in a way that's deep and real and painful while being absolutely beautiful. I was going to select a few passages from it that I thought were especially wonderful, but there are just... too many. The mood you've managed to convey is mournful and lovely and heartbreaking all at once, and they way you've woven the story together through metaphors is incredible. I have no critiques other than the fact that you should probably name it.
Overall, this is absolutely incredible poetry and you should definitely be proud!!
LOL I DON'T BLAME YOU XD
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEW!!! ^_^ <33
hi star ilu
i haven't reviewed in a while and kind of tired, so I'll make this short. Beautiful poem. It's prose-like and it works for the generally unconventional storyline. It's dark in nature while still having remnants of childlike innocence, with the mentions of talking and stars and wishing they'd reply. Many meanings, ranging from a literal sense and a more metaphorical one of using stars and space to reference something or even someone.
Powerful first line. Utterly powerful. Whispering is seen as the total opposite of screaming, which is what people do when they are angry or trying to appear as such. It sets a big expectation on the narrator from the beginning to remain calm and quiet in situations where it would be better to challenge. Forgetting someone's name is not a small mistake and it often shows a lack of respect for someone, and that someone could possibly be referring to the narrator if the metaphorical route is the one you took.
Then we get into the real meat of the poem. It's angsty, which is perfect. The narrator is emotional and going through Some Things, and it's the staple of what comes after a disappointing interaction. Flushing something down the toilet is a recurring thing I've seen when someone is ashamed of whatever they have, as if they do not want to show someone. Like not wanting to show a report card to parents.
Then we get into cigarette imagery, which doesn't really make sense to me paired with the rest. I love poetry that focuses on addiction and substances like cigarettes, but comparing that with vultures and the previously placed images that created a feeling of dreading when your parents come home and dreading telling an adult they messed up just doesn't connect in my opinion. Also, as someone who has smoked a cigarette and been around people who also have, and unfortunately burned myself more than I'd like to admit on accident: you get burned once and it hurts, you get burned again and feel nothing.
Moving on, the last paragraph. It is, again, really powerful. I am spotting a theme here with the beginnings starting out with such a force, and then you lose momentum towards the middle, and start again some other time to finish it (with that momentum you started with because it is a new day, or at least, spaced out.) I might be wrong, but from reading this, I can't tell if the imagery varies because you meant it to, or if it just happened to fall into place like that - which is why I feel something like that towards this.
I love this. What I say might seem contradictory, but that's just because I don't have the energy to add punctuation other than a period and a comma. This has great potential, and it's already very detailed and flowy. I would just refine what you want the imagery to symbolize over just having an abundance of these images.
- chi <3
omg chi hi ilu too %uD83E%uDD7A
hahaha this made me laugh xD sounds quote generator worthy, honestly >.>
Some Things%u2122
OOH, thank you for bringing up this point!! ^_^ I feel like that's something I struggle with a lot, making the poem / imagery connect as a whole, so it's really helpful for you to tell me it doesn't work for you c:
I remember reading a story (I can't remember if it was real or if it was in a book >.>) about a guy who would put out their cigarettes on their dog, and the dog had like burn marks all over its body. I was initially basing that line off of this idea, but
"you get burned once and it hurts, you get burned again and feel nothing." -> :OO that makes sense, and that could def work well, too!! I never thought about different reactions to these burns, so this was a good point to bring up, thank you ^_^
YESSSS that is something that came out with each stanza, and I'm glad you noticed hehe!! c:
Okay I'm probably going to be super bad at explaining myself oops but I'll try cx hmm I felt like this piece was just a dump of emotions with no thoughts on transitions or how it all connects? almost rambly? because I kind of just wrote it all in one go, jumping when I had exhausted an idea and moving on when I had a new way to express my feelings. I guess it's almost desperation, to find the perfect image that would help the reader understand what the narrator is going through. idk if that makes sense xD but I wrote it just dumping my heart out, so I think that's probably why the imagery is all over the place xD
AHHHH CHI, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS REVIEW!!! <333 This was super duper helpful, and it's so lovely to read from you :')) I love hearing your insights, and I will definitely take your points into consideration while revising. LITERALLY THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME <333
NOOO MY EMOJI GOT TURNED INTO %uD83E%uDD7A that was disappointing
OH NO, ALSO MY TM SYMBOL ON "SOME THINGS" GOT RUINED TOO, LOL SORRY
OKAY SORRY FOR ALL THE NOTIFS BUT THANK YOU AGAIN OMG I APPRECIATE YOU
Hey star! Incoming review!
I can see so much improvement with the different things you use to relate things. You've used coffins, name, vultures, cells, and, blizzards. My only suggestion with this is to make your signature celestial themes, come in a bit later. From reading almost all of your portfolio, I see a reliance on celestial and space themes. I want to see you challenge yourself with putting them further into your piece, but don't ditch them entirely! But goodness, so many of these parts are so good I just want to discuss them till the end of time!OOoOooOooO more star writing! I love it. Different from the usual poetry, why don't I dive into it?
One thing that was immediately apparent was the lack of proper capitalization. I truly think it is a hallmark of any starlitmind writing, poetry or not. There are so many delicate similes and relations and I love it. My favourite of the bunch being
Here, I may point out, was one grammatical confusion I don't think you intended for. With the lowercase letters and without the use of full quotation marks it becomes slightly confusing if the okay was meant to be possessive or if it was the close off the quote. I know the full quotation isn't a proper part of your stylistic choice for your writing but it can relieve some confusion it could bring about.
But if you'd want a title suggestion, perhaps, "the remains of your broken name," would be fitting. Along with that suggestion, another critique I have is mostly directed at your shorts. There isn't a real beginning, middle, or end and it comes off more as description, rather than experience. It's the biggest problem I can find with the writing itself. But I can see you with proper story writing is great showing of emotion. Because I believe you should show emotion and tell feeling.
And one last thing I would like to praise is the point of view it was written in. I always find that pieces written in 2nd person point of view are personal. It's personal in a way where you don't want to feel these feeling so you project on your reader. It helps the reader empathize with you too because we are now feeling these feelings.
But GMO star! I hope you found what I had to say helpful!! I've been waiting for another star work and I'm glad I got one! Have a great day!!! Anyway byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee<3333333
OMG FIRE THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LEAVING A REVIEW, I ALWAYS LOVE READING THEM :")))) <33
and I will eventually get to replying to your other reviews >.> I'm sorry I'm so slow :/PSHHH XD
LOL SIGNATURE CELESTIAL THEMES XD
You make a very fair point xD I TRY SO HARD FIRE LOL but stars always sneak their way into my poems >.> I shall try harder next time >.>
Ooh good point!! It was meant to be the close off of the quote -> I wasn't sure if I punctuated that correctly lol, so I'm glad to know it was confusing xD
Ohh so this wasn't actually meant to be a story (I think you thought this was meant to be a story?) I was trying my hand at prose poetry c: my first attempt hehe, so I was going more for description actually xD
OMG OF COURSE!!! I ALWAYS LOVE READING YOUR REVIEWS ^_^
thank you so much for leaving such a thoughtful review, Fire!! ^_^ you make some wonderful points, and I'll be sure to take all of these things into consideration. THANK YOU SO MUCH, BEAUTIFUL FRIEND, IT'S ALWAYS A PLEASURE <3333
OF COUSE ALSO BEAUTIFU FRIEND!!! And lol I'm not used to reading prose poetry so glad to know it was something different :P!!!
Well that works perfectly because I am not used to writing prose poetry xD HAHA I'M GLAD WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER!