Source
r/OCPoetry•
zachzebrowitz

darkness of night

Feedback Received!

even though you can’t see yourself
in that mirror that bleeds shards of glass,
that reflects the memories you wish you could forget
it can see you.

to this mirror, you’re a blue backpack
in a sea of red purses.
you’re a puddle of blood
on a crystal sidewalk.

it watches,
ever so carefully,
as a waterfall
of a single tear
runs the marathon from your eyes
to your chin.

is it an enemy?
a shadow crouched behind the bar
waiting to stab you with your own broken liquor bottle.
or is it a friend?
forcing you to chug down the truth,
the things you wish you could hide from.

the moonlight bounces from corner to corner
of your cylindrical mind
illuminating the flashbacks you hide from the world,
the memories you hide from yourself.

soon enough,
they will creep out.
they are like a lion,
stalking it’s prey,
waiting for you to become weak enough
for it to pounce,
and obliterate you.

but maybe,
just maybe,
you’ll pull a sword out of your baseball cap
and slay that tiger as if
it were simply a fly
flitting it’s wings next to your ear.

maybe,
just maybe,
you can learn to be strong.
you can learn to recover.
god,
i sure hope i can learn to recover.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/535vu6/am_i_really_truly_a_poet/d7qvram

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/536yh8/she_wept/d7qvwn0

Posted Sep 17, 2016, 7:49 PM UTC

23
Bored_Lyron•

I really like the first five stanzas. In those first ones you do a beautiful job of expressing your idea in an understated and concise. manner. However, in the later stanzas I feel like the lion and sword metaphors felt a bit forced and not written as cleanly. I'd work on trimming the fat of the last couple stanzas to bring them up to the standard that you start off with.

2
selaluff•

I really liked the vibe that this poem was giving off, and you can really feel the frustration/distrust. I think it was well written, but I feel as if towards the end of the poem, it kind of seemed as if it would be better off as a separate poem; it seemed as if it was added on as an after thought.

2
gwrgwir•

You as the author are definitely improving on your use of metaphor in comparison to your earlier pieces.

That said, the stanzas starting from 'soon enough,' to the end are rough. 'they are like a lion... for it to pounce' - changes between plural and singular subject. Lions don't usually obliterate so much as rip/shred/gnaw. The next stanza addresses the same idea as both a tiger and a fly; I'm not sure whether you personally have ever tried to kill a fly with a sword, but it's not easy. The last stanza is overly generic in comparison to the rest of the piece, and lapses back into telling rather than showing.

2