12/07/08
(re-edited 12/08/08)
i'm empty
not like the top half of an hourglass
but like your stomach
the morning after
with nothing left in it but acid
rotten, destructive, painful acid
my veins are full of everything
that could never make me better
and i'm empty on the outside
from the very depths
of where you once hid
in my chest, between my lungs
and i won't say heart, or soul, because
those fucking overused words
they're poison and i don't need any more
there's no rhyme and no reason
to the way that you act
it's like a trust game with blindfolds
and one of us leads and the other
well, we follow, follow,
blindly follow.
i don't know where you've led me
and i don't know why i continued to go
but it's clear now we're lost
and i'm begging you, please
let me take the blindfold off.
if i fall to my knees and let you
grab me and shake me
hold me upside down by my feet
my feet that are callused and rough
they hurt me so badly this whole time
following your voice
trusting your guide
would you take me and turn me inside out
and if you rip me to pieces
and nothing comes out
it's because i am empty
i'm empty.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
the challenge.
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1 comment:
I like where this is going. Keep at it. It's immediately better.
What stands you apart from a lot of bad high school poetry is your ideas. It's clear what you're trying to get across is interesting, but it's in the getting there that sometimes you run into a bit of trouble. But that's okay, because most people don't even have anything interesting to SAY. You can get better at writing, but you can't be made to be interesting.
You use a lot of metaphors I've noticed. That sounds really stupid. "Oh Anna, I see you frequently employ allusions." Geez, sorry. I guess I could delete it, but I don't like to edit myself.
Anyway, be aware that the metaphor that you think is really cool and clever may be perceived as lame or silly. I'm not saying one of yours is, but it's good to be conscious. I'm just trying to make sure you have a keen working filter, the writer's conscience if you will, that checks your ideas. I mean, it's great to just let it flow (and bad to be completely self-conscious), but often writers will fall into the habit of just thinking that every word they shit out is gold after a string of good work, when in reality we should be our own harshest critics.
Watch that your words don't sound like Avril Lavigne pop songs, and stuff like that, you know? It's often tough to avoid cliches, but you just have to do your best. People tend to dismiss high school poetry if it sounds like it could have been ripped out of the pages of a girl's diary.
One quick way to that is melodrama. There's a fine line you walk with phrases like "Those fucking shoes I wore just to look nicer for you." Again, I'm not saying your poem is melodramatic, or even that the line is bad, I'm just inviting you to always be thinking about stuff like this. If you fall into a groove and you're never challenged, how can you improve, right? It hurts when someone disses something I write, but then I'm glad for it, because it allows me to see something I didn't before, and it grounds arrogance.
Once again, I feel bad for publishing comments full of criticism, but I seriously would not take the time to do this if I wasn't intrigued. Keep writing from the heart, and I'll keep reading.
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