Source
r/OCPoetry•
AlbertanGirl

FOUR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS

Today I cried my way through four international airports  

I don’t remember how I arrived at my final destination  

Or when the Spanish turned to French  

Or how I took shuttles and sky trains  

Or how I found those A B C and D gates  

 

Today I cried my way through four international airports  

The stares of passengers, passing me by  

The intercom announcements in search of travelers testing time  

The airplane pretzels I can’t choke down  

 

Today I cried my way through four international airports  

You can trace those tears right back to you  

To those departures doors where I said I love you  

To the second person to ever hear me say those words.   Those three words  

To the last person who will ever hear me say those three words  

 

Today I cried my way through four international airports.  

They say journeys end in lovers meeting, so why am I still in motion.  

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Posted Sep 4, 2020, 5:04 AM UTC

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[deleted]•

" The airplane pretzels I can’t choke down "

That was my favorite line. Something about it felt... real. Sometimes it's those weird little details that impart that sense of deep connection. The thing that makes you feel it.

I'm not sure the repetition of the first line necessarily works. Sometimes a repeated line works because each time it's repeated it imparts different meanings. Sometimes it works because there's something particularly impactful about the line. Something unsettling/haunting. I didn't really get a sense of that here.

" To those departures doors where I said I love you  

To the second person to ever hear me say those words.   Those three words  

To the last person who will ever hear me say those three words "

I wasn't sure if you were going for melodramatic here. I can't quite tell. On one hand, it does seem like you're in on it. You claim you'll never say 'I love you' again, but this is the second time you've said it to somebody, suggesting you're aware that this isn't some "first love, nothing will ever be like this again" young love. But the self-aware melodramatic tone doesn't fit with the rest of your poem, so that makes me inclined to think it wasn't meant as such. In that case, I feel like it detracts from the poem.

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AlbertanGirlOP•

All great points, thank you! I will definitely build on this.

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CherryMoss•

I loved that you hit many of the main senses here, and brought us into the airport. I, too, resonated most with the line about the pretzels. Maybe it's because was just in an airport, but that's the most real feeling. I know that feeling.

As a note, I don't know if the rhyming in the third stanza was intentional but I like it, and wonder if you could keep with that. Let the melody of that flow more, or differently, because you're finally talking to who you want to.

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Bitcoindaddy_•

I agree with someone else who said “the pretzels I can’t choke down” with being the stand out loud. The emotion is rife and effective in this poem but I think it could benefit from more visceral and sensory imagery, so we can really get into the authors head space about the desperation and isolation in being heartbroken in an Airport, because at the moment it plays a little like the premise of a drama film.

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