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r/OCPoetry•
Amadiio

Unstable

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This is a free verse poem I wrote:

I thought I had the answers, scratched down on a page with a pen running out of ink.

I could make it out and though I understood the words I never really understood what they meant.

I thought I did though.

So as the content and comfort built, so did the tension.

My emotions are cognitively dissonant.

My mind told me to carry on, and the routine froze me from the inside.

My heart tells me that one day I will shatter, with each piece piercing the thoughts of those around me.

I don't wait for this moment like a clock.

I patiently wait in a box for everything to stop or for it to be opened by the one who put me there.

But until then I am both dead and alive.

And until then, I feed chemicals to my heart in a desperate effort to silence it.

They didn't work right and now it pumps in reverse.

Time drags on as I take another left.

It's not that I have lost my sense of direction, I just find comfort in familiarity.

Sudden changes in environment leave me clutching on to what to my reminds me I'm unique.

Un-break my circle, for the choices I make, have been made before and will be and have been made for as long as

this moment exists.

But if the circle breaks then I will cease to exist.

Like how a clock knows not that days pass but only the same 12 hours for the rest of its life.

Tear open a moment in time to change it ever so slightly so that maybe I might exist under a different face.

Though I have just begun, I am already old, angry and spared by ignorance.

I have an infinite amount of paths to choose from but so many lead to the same static filled room.

~

Feedback

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Posted Apr 18, 2017, 11:49 PM UTC · edited

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ladyofpermutations•

Overall, I like this poem and the sense of hopelessness it conveys. As it stands now, the clock motif is kind of cliché and I think you should revise it into something more original and specific.

I could make it out and though I understood the words I never really understood what they meant.

I'd take out "really."

I don't wait for this moment like a clock.

Does a clock wait for moments?

They didn't work right and now it pumps in reverse.

Nice.

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darlamo•

I don't really know how to critique this poem, I just wanted to say the sentiment you express really resonates with ne so thank you. Liked the last stanza

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ButterballHotline•

I think that, rather than free verse, you're basically writing prose here. The effect of your formlessness here isn't freedom for your poetic expression, but instead a falling back into the comfort of everyday expression. You just have a collection of prose sentences here, and because you're just writing, you have an awful lot of words and phrases that do nothing to add to any kind of poetic musicality, figurative language, or vivid imagery.

For example:

I could make it out and though I understood the words I never really understood what they meant.

This is a lot of just... word stuff. And it's mostly fluff. Or not even fluff because fluff implies pleasant sounding at least. You could express the idea of understanding denotative meanings but not connotative in an imaginative way here, rather than leaning on a clunky cliche.

Overall, I would say that just putting this into another poetic form would help by default. You would have to be a little more creative with your wording and from there it could start getting improved even more.

Of course, there is the possibility that you chose this free verse form because it conveys instability like your title. However, I would argue that a much more effective method for communicating instability when it comes to poetic form is to establish a strict form and then break it throughout the poem.

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AmadiioOP•

It was written to be sort of like someone candidly expressing there feelings, but I understand what you mean. I think im going to try to rewrite this with more of a structure. Thanks for taking the time, it was good criticism I think I needed to hear.

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