When I was small I rode my dreams like they were glass and I was careless,
my head ever-tilted towards the sky so my telescope-eyes wouldn’t be drowning like they did back home.
I had choked on skyscrapers once before, let streetlights clog my vision as they swept shadows onto the streets that weren’t supposed to be there in the vigil-like nights.
On this once-upon-a-week lake, light had been caged in the rainbow streamers of oil, and collected faint glitter that trapped itself under my too-long fingernails.
But constellations danced against my skin, a sin against the corporation-colored lights abandoned below me.
Welcome to Kentucky, they whispered silently, soothing sunburn-skin and letting my tiny fingers, gripping a pen that shaded itself coal-colored in the evening, relax.
You are here. You are a warrior in every way you want to be.
Something like hope entered my chest, something like awe left my mouth.
I have never wanted to be a girl who shines like harsh car headlights.
How many stories can a girl who has more toes than years fill with the white face of the moon, the starlit voices of her dreams?
How many ways can a poet-in-training abandon the cracked skin and laugh she has from too-long hours spent under skyline lights and speckled ceiling tiles?
When I was small I saw the city for what it was,
and the stars for what I wanted to be.
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137,849 Literary Works • 672,067 Reviews
Hi, Becca here for a review.
This is a beautiful piece with evocative imagery, and a narrator with a strong, and self-confident voice. From your opening line, I was hooked, I love the idea of showing carelessness by riding glass.
I loved "telescope eyes" in the second line, and "choked on skyscrapers" in the third. I read your words and I can picture shadows being swept, rainbow streamers, and the glitter underneath the "too-long fingernails." I also like the snideness of "corporation colored." I loved getting a sense of the narrators age from "more toes than years," such a creative way to reveal that fact.
The one thing I think this piece could use is formatting/spaces/stanzas, maybe you did have that but couldn't figure out the HTML on the site? If not, I would definitely suggest it just so the reader could have a breath.
Hope to see more of your writing!
Thank you so much for your review! And yeah, I can never quite format the way I want to on YWS, but I'm changing that on my google doc now.
Hello, Dino here for a short review!
So, usually poems like this seem to make me more wanting a story rather than something that shows emotion, if that makes sense. In this case, you did a little bit of both and personally, not a lot of people can do such a thing. I do like the overall mood you are portraying here because it shows the up and downs of romance. In some places, you surprised the reader with wonderful written imagery and in other places you kind of lacked but made up for it with wonderful mood.
I love the second line of this chunk but the first line seems kind of unclear. What do you mean by "rode the water"? I suggest explaining it more thoroughly because I'm getting some images but they aren't really clear as to what you might mean here. I like the description of telescope eyes because it seems to just show how curious the narrator really is.
In some places of this poem, you try to forge some imagery by forcing two words together that seem unsure. For example, "I had choked on skyscrapers once before", had thrown me into a loop and I'm confused. Like I said before, try to explain what you mean instead of just placing it there. Don't make things awkward without telling the reader by what you mean.
I think your beginning was closed just a little weirdly, too. But I do love it, completely. Maybe re-write it somewhere else in the poem instead of the end? Like, I feel this poem could be extended more from what it is now.
This poem was very touchy and nice imagery throughout it. If you have any questions, let me know!
Dino
Hello!
I love this poem. I love poems with long lines when they're done right, and you really pulled it off well here. I love poems like this one, that seem to whisper. It's something about the flow and the voice and it's beautiful and lovely and almost sad.
Some of the lines that I thought were amazingly beautiful were "corporation-colored lights" and "When I was small I saw the city for what it was,/ and the stars for what I wanted to be." and "I had choked on skyscrapers before". Those sections made me take a moment to just enjoy how beautiful the imagery and meaning were.
Your ninth stanza ends rather suddenly. I feel like it was unintentional; I think you should edit it to just end after the harsh car headlights (which was also BEAUTIFUL imagery by the way).
You talk about fingers a lot in the poem, and I know you're trying to create a sense of repetition, but in my opinion, I don't think it added very much to return to that same image. I think maybe if you extended it to always returning to something to do with the hands, and then you have a bit more freedom with the word choice, it was improve that while still grounding it like you want it to be.
Lovely poem, truly lovely! Hope this review helped.
-tgirly
Thank you so much for your review! It's definitely been helpful.