I ask you if you believe in happy endings, and you tell me the world is a radio show. The songs always end, but the songs always begin again, and sometimes a voice reaches out between the tunes to ask how you’re doing even though you can’t answer. Oftentimes, you say, there is static, and the radio waves don’t reach you, but it doesn’t mean you’re not in range. Sometimes the radio won’t listen. That doesn’t mean it can’t.
i. My chest buzzes at this, a radio buzz. I can’t seem to turn it down, but I can undo the screws of memory and wires of all the subtle feelings. I ask you this, too. How to turn the radio off. You tell me, There’s nothing to be done. I ask you a favour, then: smash this radio heart to bits.
ii. I hear a faint song from my radio ribcage, and your voice like an announcer cuts in and tells me no. You could never bring yourself to break anything that could be fixed. Instead, you say, I should listen to the voice in the radio until, when it asks how I am, I can say, “I’m okay.” That’s a happy ending, you say. Happy enough.
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140,280 Literary Works • 673,071 Reviews
Hey there waywardxwanderer.
I don't think I've ever reviewed any of your pieces before so I am going into this reading with no sense of your style as a poet.
It always makes me happy to see poetry pieces on YWS that are more stream of conscious and follow the sentence format. It's always something that used to be up for debate on this site - what was and wasn't able to be considered poetry. This format where the readers can see all of the thoughts of the narrator definitely draws me in right away.
I don't often like poems. I very rarely even love poems. But I really do love the imagery and the metaphors that you're forming here around the radio. There's many songs that I love that have been written about radios and what radios can mean. I think that's part of what drew me in further to my enjoyment of this piece. So often, when people use a common metaphor, it can feel tired. You've put a nice little spin on the radio ideas in this work.
One of my few criticisms with the work comes with the ending section. I think those last few thoughts might be more impactful if you split them off from the paragraph you had labeled as 'ii.'. 'Happy enough' is just such a melancholy statement that when pushed in together with all of those other thoughts, it seems to fade away. The same critique could go for the other italicized lines that you have in the first section. That might be an interesting line of formatting to pursue.
For now - Birdman away!
Oo okay!! I'll definitely give that a try, thanks so much for the review!! I'm grinning
I think this is an interesting poem.I wonder if the radio heart is a metaphor for your heart which still beats and plays the old song.A new song,too,so you aren’t misguided by old ways.The heart might be imperfect and a little broken,but it still sings and beats true.Listen to the radio heart and you will find your way.I hope you have a lovely day/night.
Thanks so much for the review