Mannequin Love

Plastic smiles, paper hearts
My heart is crumpled on the floor
I’ve watched you tear it up
And throw it at the wall

I have to pretend
Like everything’s alright
My plastic arms are posed,
With my fingers in a heart

My wide, vacant eyes stare
Right through you,
Right past you
I don’t need a heart to live

I am a mannequin
Feel nothing
Release nothing
Mannequin love

Comments & reviews · 11
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User avatar
FLyerS
Review
FLyerS wrote a review · Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:38 am

Good. I liked your mannequin metaphor. It made a lot of sense. There was some nice flow to your words. The part where you said:

And throw it at the wall

was stiff. It sounds like you're trying to make a rhyme, where there is not rhyme... Bad potatoe salad.
Over all, I liked it. It needs some polish.
Remember, as the famous line goes, "Poetry is never finished, only abandoned."

User avatar
koinu160
Review

The metaphor for this poem is not only true but it is very vivid. This poem hits home for a lot of people including myself. We all have been in this situation and we don't like to look back at this. But people need to understand the difference between real love and what you called Mannequin Love. It was a beautiful and very deep poem.

Hey there! Tori here. Let's get right to it!

Plastic smiles, paper hearts
My heart is crumpled on the floor The immediate repetition of 'heart' takes away from the potential loveliness of this stanza
I’ve watched you tear it up
And throw it at the wall

I have to pretend
Like everything’s alright
My plastic arms are posed,
With my fingers in a heart Okay, now the word 'heart' is getting repetitive.

My wide, vacant eyes stare
Right through you,
Right past you
I don’t need a heart to live *coughs* heart, heart, heart. Perhaps a different word?

I am a mannequin
Feel nothing I think "feeling" would work better.
Release nothing Maybe "releasing"?
Mannequin love



Okay, so overall, this is a pretty cool poem. I like your concept of comparing oneself to a mannequin. The whole poem is sort of a metaphor.

I think this has a lot of potential- however, you use the word "heart" far to much. It makes the whole poem repetitive and kind of boring.

Overall, I found the flow of this poem to be a little off. Try reading it out loud. Do you have to speed up some lines and slow down others, or mispronounce words to make it flow correctly? Yes. So I suggest "chunking it out". Add some words here, take some from there. Make it flow.

Overall, nice. Keep writing!

-Dreamy

User avatar
LastPaladin
Review

Wickedwonder was going to review this yesterday, but got too lazy, I apologize in advance. Now I shall begin, I think I better reread this to remember my thoughts, otherwise I'd be going in blind and that could be an absolute disaster. Now I remember, this piece had me unsure, but now I've clearer mind so I shall try translate my thoughts into my a review. Okay firstly, the concept is interesting, that thing caught me a lot, and for the themes it's good to have something that catches you off guard. On to review.

I shall begin by saying the start is okay, but just seems rather weak, it feels should say more. I can't quite put it into words, it just seems like you should be saying more and the wording after the first line is a little iffy, I wouldn't say generic, it just seems like it's pushing it a bit.

After that second stanza seems a little less rocky, it addresses the metaphor, my only suggestion for here is to perhaps to word this line more differently.

My plastic arms are posed,
With my fingers in a heart


For some reason it bothers me you mention Mannequin having a heart, I know it's a metaphor and your not really one, but instead perhaps say 'with my fingers to my chest'. I just feel it works better with what your trying to convey.

See this is where you get rather redundant, and make clear my problem from above, you mention you don't need a heart but say you have one. It's a contradiction and doesn't bode well for rest of poem, it just worries me. It's my opinion this stanza gets too angsty. What's worse the wording is rather generic and the stanza doesn't add anything to the poem.

This stanza here isn't redundant but the last line is, it just seems like a name drop and name drops get on my nerves my suggestion is cut this out and the poem will be fine.

Overall: This has it's ups and downs, but to be completely honest i don't think this hits marks at times comes across as generic and tiring, others it tries to milk the concept, it's like your not completely sure what you wanna say, as the contradiction proves, so my opinion is clear your mind and work on this and it will be better, and also don't rush it.

Hope this helps.

User avatar
ShiraYurri Review

Oh this is awsome. I wish I had though of this first. But personaly I think it was a bit short. You could really make this sound cool if you made it a bit longer and added more visualisation in order for the reader to dive deeper into the emotions of the poem. But that's just my thoughts on it.

User avatar
Mickeystwin33
Review

Wow your poem is amazing I love it. I thought it was so great. A mannequin is not something that everyone can write a poem about. I saw the title of this poem and thought it would be stupid, but it's one of the best poems I have ever read.

You do have a bit of a problem with punctation. (Sorry spellcheck isn't working)


wickedwonder wrote:Plastic smiles, paper hearts(,)
My heart is crumpled on the floor(.) You need comma's and periods to define a pause in the story.
I’ve watched you tear it up(,)
And throw it at the wall(.)

I have to pretend(,)
Like everything’s alright(.)
My plastic arms are posed,
With my fingers in a heart(.)

My wide, vacant eyes stare (,)
Right through you,
Right past you(,)
I don’t need a heart to live(.)

I am a mannequin(,)
Feel nothing(,)
Release nothing(,)
Mannequin love(.)


Most poem writers havce this problem, i used to be one of them. Someimes its hard to tell wheter or not you should use a comma or a period, so here's a tip I got "When in doubt leave it out." Here's another trick I use when writing poems, I look at them like a story and put a period at the end of every sentence. I hope this was helpful.

User avatar
watchmeburn
Review

Hey wickedwonder,

Wow, I totall agree with KAH! Your poem is amazing I never though a person could write about Mannequin Love in such a a but ou did and it worked brilliently!!! The style is great.
It was fantastic, there is so much depth, beauty and truth...
There is really nothing more that I can say, appart from that I LOVED IT :D

Well done,
watchmeburn

User avatar
KAH
Review
KAH wrote a review · Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:03 am

Hey WW!

Amazing poem! I would never think you could make a poem about a mannequin, but hey you did, at it was awesome! The flow was great! One of things I would change is adding more exclamation like comma's, periods, ect.

wickedwonder wrote:Plastic smiles, paper hearts
My heart is crumpled on the floor
I’ve watched you tear it up
And throw it at the wall

I have to pretend
Like everything’s alright
#BF00BF ">My plastic arms are posed,
With my fingers in a heart
Love this line!

My wide, vacant eyes stare#40BF00 ">.
Right through you, #40BF00 ">right past you.
I don’t need a heart to live#40BF00 ">.
*did this line to show you the whole exclamation thing*
I am a mannequin
Feel nothing
Release nothing
Mannequin love


OverAll: Amazing poem, amazing concept, amazing wording. Keep on writing, and happy review day!

User avatar
silented1
Review

You have some redundency in the first stanza. Too many things happening to the heart to lead into what else happens with it. Keep one and the throwing and that will help keep a better effect there.

As for your second stanza, you don't seem to move too much from that idea of damage. Honestly, I think you should try rewording the last two lines in that stanza, to give a more understandable image. (The comma is throwing me off)
Or remove the bottom two lines and combine the first two lines with stanza three.

As for the third stanza: Right through you and right past you are the same thing. You don't need to mention both.

As for your fourth stanza: It's a bit disjointed, you should make it flow more with the rest of the poem.

Over all:
None of your stanzas are connected, they all have their own unrelated ideas. Perhaps if you even reversed some stanzas, like stanza two, for example. If you flipped the bottom two lines witht the first, it would connect more because it goes from damaged heart to damaged heart which leads into how you pretend to be okay.

That's just an example of how you could make this flow a bit more.
Also, try adding more imagery, something to let us see what is happening.

But other than that, what you have could be the beginning to something good.
Good luck, keep writing.
Silented1.

User avatar
XxMattxX
Comment

Absolutely beautiful.Wonderful poem.



I want to see people turn and writhe; make them feel things they cannot see and sometimes do not know.
— Anna Held