Sta.sh
A Step Too Far.
She just couldn't take it anymore.
She threw her purse and her child's lunch box on to the floor
Of the fourth storey of the local car parking complex.
The lord only knows what will possibly happen next.
She begins tugging on her hair furiously in agitation.
Talking to herself having an in depth conversation.
Pacing up and down and aggressively talking in tongues.
Labelling herself as an unfit lover and mother to her husband and son.
Tears begin to cascade from her face violently.
She didn't tell her husband about her woes instead she chose to silently
Keep it to herself and let it eat her up inside.
But eventually she ran out of places to hide.
Her phone begins to ring but she chose to ignore it.
A picture of her husband and son appears but she wishes she never saw it.
A small crowd begins to formulate beneath her.
Familiar voices shouting and screaming trying to keep her
From edging any closer to the edge.
But her toes continued to embrace the unstable ledge.
Her body is now swaying against the disinterested winds.
Realising that life is one game she will never be able to win.
She clenches her eyes and takes one last deep breath.
And raises one foot in the air in preparation for her last step.
Her body propels towards the over populated concrete grounds.
Although her vessel lies there vacant, her soul is no longer earth bound.
How bad must things be for someone to resort to that extremity?
Not everyone see's their life as an invaluable necessity.
To her that particular act was deemed as her only attainable remedy.
But to others this act may seem cowardly and selfish.
And that there are other logical ways that can help prevent this.
My heart goes out to her, her family and friends.
For thinking that this was the only way to bring it all to an end.
It just goes to show you can never calculate the lengths people would go to.
And that you can know a person for nearly your whole entire life.
But never know of all the pain and the suffering they actually go through.
Kela Lewis-Morin
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Thank you,
thestaccatobutterfly -
First stanza: The immediate thoughts I had surfaced from the lack of detail you have given us about the character at hand. Here are some questions I need answered: Who is “She”, where is she, and what can’t she take anymore?
Second: “Storey” should be spelled “story”. This couplet seems like filler. I assumed the first stanza may be in a home but now we’re in a parking complex? Is she in her car? You used the word floor so I assume so but I may be wrong again because the details aren’t there for me to discern it.
Third: What is the conversation she’s having? The first line is good because it’s a concrete image. The next line gives us nothing .
Fourth: The second half of the first line can be removed since you already said she’s having a conversation with herself. I would personally remove the last line of the third couplet and the first in the fourth. This will destroy the rhyme scheme but I have a feeling that the scheme is hindering your writing.
Fifth: Alright, I’ve read enough to know that you LOVE adverbs. Try to cut out words that end in “ly” because they may sound like they help, but they don’t. They simply show that the verb they’re working with isn’t strong enough. You already have cascade, you don’t need violently as well.
Sixth: Good enjambment, but this one has the clichés: “Eat her up inside.” And “Run out of places to hide. Find fresher ways to say this.
Seventh: Here we go, this is starting on the right track. You have clear imagery the reader can see and understand without adverbs or clichés.
Eighth: The use of the same word to rhyme is a bit jarring.
Ninth: More enjambment, a good technique. “Edging closer to the edge” definitely needs a different verb. I feel like, again, this couplet is a victim of the rhyme scheme.
Tenth: The word disinterested doesn’t need to be there. This is unnecessary personification that the piece can do without. The second line another cliché.
Eleventh: Imagery is solid here.
Twelfth: The first line is jumbled with words you don’t need. We know the ground is crowded with pedestrians. Also, the “vessel” isn’t lying there, it’s falling and since she is still alive, her soul would technically be earth bound since it’s still in her.
Thirteenth: This starts off with a good question but I think that it’s a topic we would get without you asking the reader. This takes us away from the action you’re trying to show and shows that you’re trying to get the reader to feel a certain way. I would remove this stanza entirely.
Fourteenth – End: Here we see more of the writer talking to the reader. While this may seem like it’s thought provoking it makes me think you weren’t confident enough about the poem itself to give these things off. Inserting yourself in the poem took me away from the action and poem itself and just felt like you were preaching to me about how hard life is and how much you cared.
This piece needs a bit of work. It’s overwhelmed with clichés, poorly constructed wording, lack of detail, and sticks to a rhyme scheme that kept it from evolving. I think if you were to go through this you could definitely take the story of the stressed out mother/wife killing herself and make it a stronger piece that doesn’t resort to the writer breaking away from the poem to tell us what it’s about.
Fifth: I don't see why adverbs would be problematic, however suffix rhymes are not that aesthetic.(This is a common problem in Hungarian, it being an agglutinating language, I perhaps never saw one in English before.)
Sixth: These are variations of common expressions, that describe actual feelings, replacing them with metaphors would seem coerced, given the poem's simple pictures.
Twelfth: That's just a jump in time, nearly 3 seconds forward.(Are you really arguing about a technicality in a poem? )
Fourteenth:I think it is there to make the poem into a sort of fable.
I agree with the other things you have mentioned. But I still think this is a fairly good poem, however the style is a bit too simple for me, but well, I love obscurity.
PS: Since I love obscurity I think its good that the person and the nature of the conversation aren't revealed.
First, I can concede that I was wrong about storey, though I do wonder why this variation is used as opposed since no other word choices in the piece fit that type.
Secondly: Adverbs are problematic because they show that your verbs are not strong enough to stand on their own or are overkill. "Cascade from her face" doesn't need it, it was just used here to keep the rhyme scheme and that type of things jumps out at readers.
Third: These common expressions you speak of are called cliches. To put them in a different way would be making the poem different from others that use these same exact wordings. There is no reason or excuse to use a cliche. Ever. Period.
Fourth: Yes, I am arguing technicalities because it was an issue that made me stop reading the piece and ask, "Wait, what." These are issues that need addressing because if someone stops due to this, it's likely others will too.
Fifth: The problem I have with this fable idea is that the poem can say these things without throwing them in the reader's face. Readers are not stupid, they don't need their hand held through these things to figure out the moral of the story. By doing this, the writer is taking a step backwards. What's the point of the poem if you're going to give us exactly what you want to say? Sure it adds some context, but you could cut everything but these few stanzas and still have the same message.
Obscurity and simple? That's a new one. Obscure and thought provoking are not synonyms.
PS - Although I feel it'd be fair for others to see these comments and concerns with the poem, if you'd like to keep it private that is your issue to deal with. If you'd like to keep this out of the public eye then I'm happy to do so.
PPS - You posted this on the poem itself, so it shows up.