Source
r/OCPoetry•
Pinsandweedles

You made me feel whole, for a while.

Your favorite tattered shirt
And grass stained blankets.
Dried sunflower wreaths,
The smell of baby heads
And the pinch of puppy teeth.
40's in the bed of my truck, making our own constellations.
Sketching hearts on sunburnt thighs.
Rainbow hunting and casual handholding.

Storm clouds with half-hearted thunder

And melty hailstones slushing at our feet.

Umbrella bickering,

The concern of staying out late

And the growl of territorial beasts.

Morning shots in your car, glowering at the sun.

Penning breakup letters on password locked phones.

Separating vinyl into boxes, careful not to touch.

Frost

First a cock

Posted Sep 3, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

58
HalfUnable1992•

I like how you broke down the 2nd half. It starts off kind of happy and then becomes more truthful. And melancholy. Good work.

2
PCTWH•

Lovely imagery. The language here was stunning, especially the "making our own constellations" line. Lovely.

Adding space between the lines in stanza 2 was a nice touch, I'd like it to keep going tbh, if only to get more imagery and to see the structure change even more.

Personally, I think it would work better with a rhyme scheme, not because it needs one, but because if it had one, it's another element to play around with and peel apart. Obviously that can restrict your freedom of word choice, so I get it if you didn't want to use one.

2
PinsandweedlesOP•

I agree with you about the rhyme scheme. I think it would really help with the flow. I’m honestly terrified of using rhymes in my poetry. Reminds me too much of my awful high school poetry, but I spose we never grow if we never try!

2
PCTWH•

Tell you what, if you can write like that, you can handle a rhyme scheme.

It's super satisfying when the rhyme just works.

(Pain in the arse when it doesn't, but hey, that's part of the process)

2
PinsandweedlesOP•

Hah, I appreciate the kind words! If I get the guts to work a rhyme scheme into this I’ll let you know!

2
PCTWH•

Don't worry about putting it into this one, don't wanna mess that imagery up too much.

2
professional_giraffe•

I can feel the tone change but how you formatted this poem really solidifies the difference between the first half and the second. I get a certain feeling from the punctuation as well, and whereas I don't usually like too much punctuation in a poem it helps with the tone in this case.

It may help to be more consistent, and make every line in the second half it's own sentence. I think it still makes sense that way and would be just a tad more dramatic, with tiny adjustments like taking away the "and" in

And melty hailstones slushing at our feet.

to make each line a sentence. It's up you but I think it gives a resigned feeling to the ending of the relationship, the speaker is still grieving and the text slowing down a little in that that was makes it more real.

Overall it tells a story, and does a good job at doing that.

2
PinsandweedlesOP•

I think I understand what you’re saying about making each its own line, and I can agree with the mood that it would add. The original draft actually looked a lot like that. But I wanted to drive home a stronger sense of parallelism (mostly for the sake of practice) in this poem. I worried that if I made each one it’s own sentence that aspect wouldn’t show through.

Thank you for your feedback!

2