Rumination

[u/pieceoflion]

a broken hello
and I have been standing
inside it for some time now
but how much longer
can I stay here

here, sentences
fold in on themselves
the boundary has come undone

along a line
all the nothingness
that has gathered until now
is laid out

the pieces,
I think,
are cutting into me
how much longer
can I
be

a crooked goodbye//
I gather the pieces
scattered across the floor
my fingertips are wet

feedback links: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/yy4YW9gyQ4

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/zLbmZlocj4

[u/Infinite-Culture3735]

Really love the build up in stanza 4, how the lines fragment - mirroring the cracking that is happening to the speaker. The ending is crazy good, 'my fingertips are wet' such a visceral image, immediately bringing to mind the picture of someone frantically, fruitlessly trying to put back together broken glass - not even noticing the harm they're doing to themselves in the process.

One thought I had is you could experiment with form to make the poem mirror the metaphor even more:

- Examples below with "boundary" literally coming undone and "nothingness...laid out" represented by a larger stanza break-

fold in on themselves
the boun
dary has come undone

along a line
all the nothingness
that has gathered until now
is laid out

/

/

the pieces,
I think,
are cutting into me
how much longer
can I
be

[u/pieceoflion → u/Infinite-Culture3735]

First of all, I want you to know how happy your thoughtful and intelligent reading made me. I’m not sure how much I should explain this, but for me the poem is designing the physical space of the feeling that holds me in its palm. I really loved that you noticed the distortions and fractures. Your suggestion is clever too, but for me it would make the poem feel a little too designed, and give it a kind of physicality that feels more familiar than I want.

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[u/Stefesike]

I write with this broken up style sometimes, and almost always these types of poems give a sort of mysticism surrounding their themes due to the vagueness of the imagery of each line. I won't critique any formatting because I like this style by itself, and I don't think rhyme should be a vital thing to a poem, though of course it adds to it significantly. Interestingly done, I like it.

[u/pieceoflion → u/Stefesike]

Thanks a lot. Your comment really made me happy. For me, the fragmentation is doing a little more than shaping the style or atmosphere. I was trying to let the poem build its own kind of physical logic, where the the feelings begin to affect the space itself. I wasn’t sure how much of that would come through, so it was really interesting to read your response.