I am the hours stretched before you
I am the years you willingly wasted and every second in between
Now and then
I am your mirror when you least expect and want me to
I am your path untraveled and unseen.
I am the haze that clouds bad judgment
I am the abiding qualm inside your head
I am the wretch, the knave, the innocent
I am the aching thoughts you reluctantly neglect.
I am the tears you swallow and the insecurity you hide
I am the waking hours, the impending dusk, I am all I seemed
I am the fear that echoes from both sides
I am the naked utterance you wish you’d screamed
I am today what ‘morrow brings
I am the everlasting moments and the ones that flee
I am sky and ground but above all things
I am the me you’ve chosen not to be
3 comments:
Welcome, Josephine. I've been thinking about this poem on and off all day. It has some nice images in it but I think it wants a bit of shortening and I can suggest a structural change.
My opinions naturally so please do not take them too much to heart. Take what seems right and leave the rest as they say in AA.
First, in my experience readers get very cold when they see the word I repeated over and over. The reason is pretty simple I think, if a poem is so much about I then what is it offering the you who is reading it? I is quite simply a door closer. I believe in leaving the reader some doors to walk through, you can ask Tiger about that. Tiger would be our resident surrealist. :)
So if you lose the I starting every line then I think you'll have more freedom with the structure of the piece. You can begin lines with words that carry some weight, for instance:
I am the hours stretched before you, the years
you willingly wasted, every second in-between–
now and then
I am your mirror when you least expect
even want me to be, your path untraveled and unseen.
Maybe that's a bit too off the wall for you but I'm a nut for line enjambments and simply messing about with syntax and the reader's mind a bit if I'm lucky.
I hope these little ideas are helpful. I may revisit it. I do sometimes. Hopefully Tiger will emerge from the jungle and have a word soon too. Thanks for posting and welcome again. Cheers!
Well, PB, I don't see how she can take the 'I's out without gutting the whole poem.
My reaction when I read this a day or so ago was, "Wow, these are really powerful images" but I also felt that a poem that seemed to be a love poem, it was lacking in feeling. This is very left brain for me, logical. It's a thinking poem, but I don't feel the love, the pain, and all the things you write about.
PB, on second thought, maybe your problem with the I's is related to why I feel there's no emotion. For someone missing a lover, the whole focus is on I. As I read it again, it's an angry poem, not a love poem.
Thanks for the comments. I totally agree P.B. I hate repetition myself, I usually don't use it a lot in my work. But this time I didn't mind as much and I just couldn't see a way around it. But your suggestions are pretty good.
I'll think about it!
(I hardly every change a poem, I just make second versions :p)
Alaska Steve; yeah, you're right about the second interpretation. It's more an angry poem than a love poem..
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