Source
r/OCPoetry•
INFJHealing

[I am soul, skin and bones]

Feedback Received!

[I am soul, skin and bones]

​

I am soul, skin and bones;

I am the aching of my vagus nerve.

​

I am the weight of life, upright

Defying gravity.

​

I am everything I thought I was,

I am everything I could not be.

​

I am this effervescent smile,

I am the mirror you can gleam.

​

I am the happiness

Of dendrites,

And the space between the sheathes.

​

I am every joint, tissue and tendon

That connects to meet;

I am the marrowbone,

And every hole you cannot see.

​

I am five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand calories,

Wrapped into a man-sized sheet,

That hugs and loves and kisses

Six feet of earth beneath.

​

I am NOT my sorrow.

My sorrow is not me.

My sorrow is my child

Whose tender palm I squeeze.

​

I am not my death.

My death is not come me;

My life, my own, my right

To be what I was meant to be.

​

1 2

Posted Aug 6, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

4724
madamblavatsky2019•

Oh, this is a lovely bit of poetry! Nice work, OP!

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RDoanut•

It sounds as a confessional to ones other half which ends sweetly with a sort of redemption. I wanted to hear what your sorrow was though, to see where you came from, which would give the end a more satisfying picture. I'm struggling with connecting to my audience too, I like saying what's on my mind. I like it.

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INFJHealingOP•

Originally written for an audience of one, actually. So you're right :)

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PossiblyPeachy•

I love this. It allows the reader to investigate themselves and produce their own conclusions based on their own feelings and experiences. Very deeply felt. ❤️

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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INFJHealingOP•

This is the first poem I've written in 6 years. I've been through a lot, I've been in therapy, and I've walked away from poetry long enough for it to feel fresh again. This was my first attempt at getting back on the horse. I tapped into that forgotten place to see what authenticity would come out, and this was it.

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anthrolover•

Visceral and comforting, really lovely relationship with yourself represented in this poem

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INFJHealingOP•

Thanks. I'm in a good place!

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XVIILegioClassica•

You reside in situ. Plagiarized caste. Brittle of milieu. Bastion aghast.

You are vale of perdition. Your asinine task. Pulpit vague sentinel. Acquiescent, at last.

You prostrate via Turgid and subservient Verbs.

Your egalitarian quotient Pulse De rigeur.

You resplendent, expedient. Dulcet averse. Dire vile cults attain Virulent curse.

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the_small_reveries•

...I love this. Truly. It has been a long time since a piece of art made me feel like this. From a professional standpoint, it's quite loquacious, but personally I love the verbosity. I've combed through your other poems and honestly, I want to become your friend. Shoot me a dm, will you? Side note: post this poem on it's own post, it certainly deserves it.

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XVIILegioClassica•

Wow. I'm stunned. I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before. Boom. We are friends.

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[deleted]•

[removed]

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xX_Ogre_Xx•

Wow! This is powerful stuff. Can you extend it? Carry it to further realms of experience? If you can, you should. Extend this as far as you can. Each step will make the poem stronger.

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INFJHealingOP•

The inspiration for this poem is spent and I find it complete already. But if I come up with something you'll get a pm. Thank you

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-Xoz-•

Good one, could you perhaps elaborate the last part..'I am not my death..' confused about 'My death is not come me'.

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INFJHealingOP•

I left that phrase deliberately ambiguous in regards to grammar and meaning. But the closest approximation is "I will not let my death become me".

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XVIILegioClassica•

Quick tip. Don’t explain your poetry. Otherwise ppl might understand what you mean.

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the_small_reveries•

I like it. The soft sound and the rhyming stanzas give a lyrical sense to the poem. I love how the poem has theme of anatomy and bodies and gradually focuses on them to the point where they talk about death. But there are many problems I can recognize. A good portion of the lines sound like filler, to lengthen the poem, to make some lines rhymes. Mind, with every bit of criticism, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. And with any bit of art, it is always subjective, so change as much or as little as you want.

  1. "I am the weight of life, standing upright / Defying gravity" the wording is confusing, especially if you're trying to make the metaphor that you are "standing up against life's pressures". It can seem very redundant at first glance, especially the "defying gravity" line.

  2. "I am this effervescent smile / I am the mirror you can gleam" sound as if there just there to sound pretty. If you're trying to make a radiant, joyful, bubbly person that deserves to be seen, there are more impactful and clearer ways to write it. Mind, the way I phrased it makes you sound narcissistic, but I realize that it is supposed to be empowering. Another thing the word "this" can take away from the repetition. But instead of removing it, maybe try "I am this mirror..." instead

  3. "I am five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand calories / wrapped into a man-sized sheet / that hugs and loves and kisses / six feet the earth beneath" the "525 000 calories" is long and can be hard to smoothly say. You can achieve the same effect by using pounds or kilograms instead. "Wrapped into a man-sized sheet" has odd imagery that doesn't congeal well with the rest of the imagery that the poem is trying to emulate. To fit with anatomical theme, try "wrapped up in a fleshy sheaf". "Six feet the earth beneath" the wording is jarring and doesn't mix smoothly with the rest of the poem because it was so obviously twisted to make the lines rhyme. My improvement is "six feet in the worlds between" not only does it evoke stronger, more divine imagery, but it has more flowing, languid fricatives that help smoothen the sentence. It is only a slight improvement, though.

4 "I am NOT my sorrow / my sorrow is not me / my sorrow is my child / whose tender hand I squeeze" my only problem with the first one is that not is fully capitalized which takes away the feeling of the poem. The second seems redundant, because its literally repeating what the first one said backwards, and you can tell it was made so it would rhyme.

That's it. I hope you find my critique useful. :)

1
INFJHealingOP•

Thanks for your feedback. I think you caught many of the "Gotchas" in the poem that I had to think twice about, but ultimately left as is because I found them good enough.

I will offer explanations for the lines you critiqued below:

  1. The line is actually "I am the weight of life, upright / Defying gravity". The word standing does not appear here. Without the 'standing' word I don't think it's repetitive.
  2. "I am this effervescent smile / I am the mirror you can gleam". If you met me, you'd know I wasn't lying about my smile. So this seems authentic to my experience, without being there to just sound pretty.
  3. "I am five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand calories / wrapped into a man sized sheet / that hugs and loves and kisses / six feet of earth beneath". The '525,000 calories' written out, hyphens and all, is a deliberate choice to convey hyperbole, and the paradoxical fact that 150 pounds of a person isn't that much to begin with. "Man-sized sheet" is indeed awkward, but I think it's stilted just enough to support the previous 525,000 calories description. What I'm not really happy with is the "six feet of earth beneath". The original line was "the bubbling earth beneath", which isn't great either. But at least the cliche phrase "six feet of earth" acts as a segue towards the sorrow/death ending.
  4. "I am NOT my sorrow / my sorrow is not me" -- the fully capitalized NOT punctuates something very personal, and I believe it adds to the climax of the poem by signalling a change in tone (from "I am's" to "I am not's"). I respect your take on it though. The redundancy of the second line 'my sorrow is not me' does indeed say the same thing backwards. But structurally it's there to convey, twice-over, how sorrow is nothing more than what it isn't. Using palindromic phrasing it self-contains the sorrow and keeps it in check. This is in comparison to all of the flowery and concrete/bodily imagery of the "I am's" that run rampant through the poem.
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lenorayusset15•

When the poem began, it reminded me of a song called Human, which happens to be a favorite of mine. I love the break down of what human is, and then the build up of who you are and your own individuality amongst that. I especially love the parallelism you used throughout and the shift at the end of what you are not. Really powerful poem here!

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the_small_reveries•

Ah! Dodie! Love her.

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INFJHealingOP•

A source of poetic sensibility for me comes from Purity Ring, specifically the singer/songwriter Megan James. She has a way of including visceral descriptions of the body in her songs that are to die for. I'll check out Human. Thank you!

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eelleeoo•

This is amazing! The rhyme scheme is very pleasing and consistent. My only critique is that I feel the third stanza might be more impactful later on in the poem; if it were placed before where the narrator begins describing what he is not, it would summarize the section well. It’s ok where it is, but since nothing has been listed yet, its impact is lessened.

But seriously, I love this! Great job!

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INFJHealingOP•

I see what you mean. Thank you!

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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