To my closest friends and family;
Sometimes I forget to tell you how much I care about you and how grateful I am for your presence in my life.
I love you all! <3
~TheTaostedWriter~
When the nights are cold, my mind runs to memories. Days of cheer and happiness. Days of love and forgiveness, but some nights, my mind runs to the chaos and the hatred, and that's when I forget who I have beside me.
I forget my mother. The one who held my hand. The one who stood beside me when I needed her most. I forget her words and the tales she spoke. I forget her hopes and dreams that she holds inside for me. I forget everything.
I forget my father. The one who taught me strength. The one who stood beside me to teach me how not to trip and fall. I forget how he gave me advice on how to handle bullies and great pain. I forget how he taught me to build and fix my car. I forget how he taught me guitar and music. I forget everything.
I forget my brothers. The ones who stood before me. The ones who watched my back and protected me. I forget their warmth and cover. I forget their love. Even when they were rough, they made a point to show emotional value when times got tough. I forget how they taught me how to defend myself when they're gone. I forget when they showed me kindness when they were the ones in pain. I forget everything.
I forget my sister. The one who taught me right from wrong. The one who showed me how a lady acts, but also how she's strong. I forget her words of courage, or her words of improvement. I forget the times she took me out for my own benefit. I forget how she told me "boys don't matter, forget about him", but I didn't. I still remember him when I forget everything.
I forget my best friends. The ones I have fun with. The ones that laugh at me when I fall, and then reach down to build me back up again. I forget how they are kind, even when we act like fools. I forget how free it feels to act stupid alone with them. I forget how cooking becomes less of a chore with them. I forget how organizing and cleaning my room becomes more entertaining than when I'm alone. I forget how they make everything a game, just to cheer me up. I forget everything.
I forget my lover. The one who listens to my rants. The one who's probably going to be the first to hear this page. I forget the love he gives when I'm lonely and stressed. I forget how he sits and listens patiently when I'm crying and depressed.. I forget how much he cares when I show a lack of interest in my hobbies. I forget how much he worries when I forget to eat during my day. I forget his level of honesty when it comes to my feelings and his. I forget everything.
I hate that I forget these things. That I forget them all. I hate that I forget these things when I know I'm slipping and dropping and falling. I hate that even after I push all of them away, they come back. They never leave. I forget that, too. I forget everything good when the negative memories rush in.
I forget what's most important. When I should think of the positive, but I think negative, I tend to forget…
…My hill of stars.
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,739 Reviews
Hello TheTaostedWriter!
I forget their love. Even when they were rough, they made a point to show emotional value when times got tough.
I forget what's most important. When I should think of the positive, but I think negative, I tend to forget…
RandomTalks here with a short review! Fair warning though, I haven't reviewed on this platform for a really long while, so please bear with me!
This was an incredibly raw exploration of the power of human memories and how sometimes they are the only thing that stand between us and a never-ending spiral of negativity. That's the imagery that came to my mind while reading this piece - of a person standing at the edge of darkness and trying and failing to desperately hold on to the light.
I love how intimate the piece feels - like we are getting a glimpse into the inner turmoil of a struggling person trying to do their best, but still coming up short. The repetition of 'I forget' throughout adds a lyrical quality to the narration and makes it flow almost like poetry. I know you warned us about the repetition, but I like the way the piece is structured. It feels intentional and impactful and the way each 'I forget' is followed with memories of all the love, support and positivity the narrator received from her loved ones makes us resonate more with their struggle. By describing the warmth and light first and then taking them away with 'I forget everything', makes the loss of those wonderful memories feel more tragic. However, if you were to create some variation to avoid monotony, you could go about describing each of the relationship and then end with, 'And yet I forget...' Its just a suggestion though, and its totally up to you!
The build-up to the ending was amazing - how you moved from family to friends to a lover showcases the narrator's close and trusted circle and how much they have been positively reinforcing the narrator throughout their life. The way you describe the emotional connection the narrator shares with each of them pulls the reader directly into their thoughts, making the struggle feel all the more real and personal. I like how it highlights that the narrator is loved and supported, but they struggle to hold on to that feeling of love and support when the darkness creeps into their mind. The sentiment is so relatable and makes us connect and empathize with this experience. After all, everyone struggles with negativity in some form or the other.
One point I wish you had expanded on was the phrase in the very title itself - 'my hill of stars'. Its poetical and it stands as a metaphor for all the people the narrator loves, but maybe if you had introduced the concept/reference in the beginning, the ending could have felt more like a full-circle moment. Also, it could have been a really cool way to explore some metaphorical imagery and they might have made the reading experience even more profound!
Some other points:
Spoiler
The flow got disrupted for me in this part. It sure does rhyme, but it raises the question 'when who/what were rough' especially since its preceded by the line 'I forget their love'. I feel like this part can be phrased better.
Spoiler
I loved this ending! It feels like a short summary for everything the piece is about. It invokes a sense of despair and hope at the same time and it makes us root for the narrator so that they can overcome the negativity and hold on to the light.
Overall, this was an incredibly beautiful and emotionally charged piece! Your writing is poetic and it makes it incredibly easy to form an emotional connection to the narrator. I love how universal and relatable the message is, I read in your reply to Toast's review that you were in the process of getting adopted last December. The transition can be difficult and I can only hope that you, like our narrator find the strength to remember and hold on to the light as well!
Thank you for sharing this work with us and have a wonderful day/night!
I thank you sooo much for writing this review! Your words are extremely helpful and I'll definitely be taking some of the advice given in my future writings.
I'm glad you noticed the emotion that was placed into this piece. A lot of my poetic-like pieces take on from thoughts and emotions, and that's how I write best. While I can't seem to speak my thoughts, I sure can write them!
I loved how you worded your review. It was easy to understand and descriptive. It was very helpful! Thank you!
Sadly, the adoption has not gone through. The service we are under fired our case worker and hired a new one, so we have to start from square one, which is about... 5 years ago. Thankfully, it won't be too long since they didn't have our files OR case in their system anyways! It is now though! Haha. I think the worst part of this all is how careless the government has become with their child protection services. This never should've happened. It should've been finished by now.
Anyways, I wish you a happy day/night! Thank you so much for taking your time to review my piece! <3
~Taost
Hello fellow toast! what a beautiful work piece of... poetry? honestly, not sure, which is probably why you put it in the others section but this is poetry to me ok? Anyways, enough tangents, let's dive in shall we?
First Impressions
First of all, I LOVE all the analogies, euphemisms, (whatever you call it because i can never remember the correct term) that are going on here. Stars in the sky as the people important around you, it sets up for such a nice analogy. Especially since yes, we tend to forget how vast and clear the stars can be, especially when we are in the heat of the moment. The sky is one of the most beautiful thing in this world, yet it is one of the easiest things to miss; something that we almost always take for granted.
For The Story
I like how it goes through each of the big important people in your life, talking about how forgetting each of them have a different impact on you. I wanted to give commentary on each of them, but realized i don't have any siblings or lovers, so I basically can only talk about half of them. Instead, I do have a question about why there's no relatives here. I know every family is different, and especially with the rise of nuclear families, mom, dad, me, and maybe a sister or brother is as far as most family relationships go. Still interesting how relatives like Aunts and Uncles, or our favorite Granparents are missing though.
Anyways, there isn't anything that I really found "wrong" with this, especially because I enjoyed reading it too much
and totally didn't have to go back and read it again to write a review, but maybe replacing the comma with a period at:here could make for easier reading. Especially because though it isn't, it KindOfFeelsLikeARunOnSentenceIfYouKnowWhatIMean.
All in All
I really enjoyed this simple, and beautiful piece. It's short and simple, yet so meaningful in ways that most of us (including me) can't and probably won't fully relate to. Those twinkling stars are indeed the ones that give us love and happiness, but they are so easy to forget and lose track of.
Happy writings!
Thank you for writing a review! I've been waiting for a word of advice on this piece for a while. I knew the question of "Why isn't closer family involved?" and the reason stands of they either hurt me so much that I don't consider them family, or I have no contact with them, so I don't know them well enough to trust them or even consider them a family, other than by blood. The other thing is I'm in the process of being adopted, so my biological family, besides my brothers, were not mentioned in this piece. Hope that helps!
Thank you so much!
~Taost