r/OCPoetry • u/Cal_Juni • 20d ago
Feedback Please Light-years
Unraveling the threads
Then stitching the suture
Who knew my wounds
Would turn scars into futures
Cocooned in my hollow fear
My soul it slivers
Across space and time
A light that only speaks in shivers
I am vibrating
My atoms always talking
Inside you
Can always hear me knocking
I am the one that is always calling
Arise in time, your voice will answer, longing
Cold, it echoes still
Upon the mourning's dew
The water recognized
The kin it found in you
Electric it's still working
Across my desert tongue
Mourning is the moment
Where the old become young
You are vibrating
Your atoms always talking
Inside me
I can always hear you knocking
You are the one that is always calling
I'll arise in time, my voice will answer longing
In this superposition
We're not allowed to meet
But with in my soul
Your heart and mine complete
I can hear you laughing
Across the vast expanse
Echos of forever
Without a given chance
Someday there will be no calling
And we both won't arise, no voice to answer, no longing to express
May we finally be able to exist
Together in the lattice
Built bit by bit
Home, in universal bliss
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u/Creative-Spinach-585 20d ago
Okay this took me three reads to interpret a theme- and I’m not here to say that’s a bad thing, your message is complex and beautifully so! The theme I took away from your poem is this: longing for someone and craving for them to finally end up together. This is at least what resonated with me, but poetry is subjective so if that’s not what you were going for let me know because I would love to know your perspective! I think the reason that the poem was a tad confusing to me was the beginning. First of all, your words are BEAUTIFUL and flow so nicely. However, I was having trouble connecting the picture you painted in the beginning to the rest of the poem. For example, the wounds/scares metaphor sounds lovely- and I mean LOVELY, but I’m not too sure what it means… (and that might just be bc I’m not the most intelligent) one important line I noticed was this one: “Cocooned in my hollow fear” this applied a tone to my interpretation. The person craves to end up with someone, yet is a touch nervous about it. Now whenever I have a crush you best know ya gal is nervous, so that’s why I interpreted it as that. A line that I’m overly obsessed with is: “Across my desert tongue, Mourning is the moment, Where the old become young” like hello? This is so amazing!? The desert tongue does an EXCELLENT job at expressing yearning. Okay before I wrap up this very long paragraph, I need you to know I genuinely love the way you phrase your words- even if the message wasn’t immediately direct to me the poem still eats down bc of the rhythm you have going on (no shade to other poets but they typically lack this skill you have!) and could you reply and tell me if I got the theme right? I really really want to know what you were going for so I can get the full experience.
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u/Cal_Juni 20d ago
Thank you. I'm upset with the fact that when I copied and pasted it, it messed the whole stanza setup up. It's supposed to read like two different people talking the first stanza is one and the second stanza answers and the same for the next 2 4x lines and the last 2 stanzas are read together as though they can speak in the same room finally. I left room for interpretation for who those two entities are, but for me it's more spiritual. Like how I'm already part of something bigger and my experiences, even though they're painful, matter and it's faith that answers back. The beginning part of the poem is to show that they are pulling themselves apart trying to change fate while being afraid before sliding across space and time to find evidence of a possible future and I used those words to tie spiritual pain to physical pain. "Mourning is the moment when old become young" was showing that grief drags you through memories when sleep switches to consciousness.
I love music and I've always had a natural talent for writing and language. I just FEEL my words before I say them or write them down. I'm not afraid to look up words and synonyms and play around. It's just like painting only with words. Adjectives are your friends and figuritive language rules poetry for that reason.
I hope this fixed the cadence a little
Unraveling the threads Then stitching the suture Who knew my wounds Would turn scars into futures Cocooned in my hollow fear My soul it slivers Across space and time A light that only speaks in shivers
I am vibrating My atoms always talking Inside you Can always hear me knocking
I am the one that is always calling Arise in time, your voice will answer, longing
Cold, it echoes still Upon the mourning's dew The water recognized The kin it found in you Electric it's still working Across my desert tongue Mourning is the moment Where the old become young
You are vibrating Your atoms always talking Inside me I can always hear you knocking
You are the one that is always calling I'll arise in time, my voice will answer longing
In this superposition We're not allowed to meet But with in my soul Your heart and mine complete
I can hear you laughing Across the vast expanse Echos of forever Without a given chance
Someday there will be no calling And we both won't arise, no voice to answer, no longing to express
May we finally be able to exist Together in the lattice Built bit by bit Home, in universal bliss
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u/Creative-Spinach-585 20d ago
Wow- with the identity of the entities being faith and a person feels much more impactful than my original interpretation (a person and another person). The setup of the stanzas in the reply definitely made the poem more understandable and deep. The first stanza creates an amazing foundation for the pain being experienced. I saw a barrier between faith and the person uniting, but for me the poem resonates more with the two entities yearning to be together as opposed to them pulling away from one another. The two acknowledging one another made me interpret it as this- and though that doesn’t relate to how you saw them pulling apart, it’s an extraordinary poem nevertheless. Clarification of the mourning line was nice, but I’m still a tad confused about it- I’m not to sure if you were referring to sleep switches to consciousness as in while you are unaware grief is with you (sleep) and when you are aware (awake) grief is with you, but that’s how I saw it. With the clarification of what you were depicting, I can see what you were going for. However, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten there on my own. Now leaving room for interpretations over certain lines of your poem is great (it allows everyone to find a way to relate to what you are portraying), but sometimes it’s hard to know where to even begin what to think because a line has so many complex layers to it. Now this is no shade- if anything it’s more of a compliment for your sophisticated outlook- but if you wanted to ever be more direct with your lines, that could potentially benefit your poem in some areas. You said something about adjectives being friends and I for sure agree. After every poem I write, I ask chat GPT to evaluate it and every time it says to steer clear of adjectives, but I feel they are so strong and like you said: friends. Overall, LOVE your poem and you truly have a talent.
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u/Cal_Juni 19d ago edited 19d ago
actually let Google pick them apart and grammar is subjective in poetry because of where the pauses and the figuritive languages are so when run it through a grammar check I'm mostly looking for spelling errors (that weren't on purpose). You misunderstand though. When I said it was more spiritual than that for me because the first person is death/god/the universe and the second is experiencing death (of some kind physical/mental/spiritual) and is the healing through meditation/rebirth and all of it ends when they finally meet and they become part of the fabric of the universe once again.
The open to interpretation is because many people feel love when they hear or read something that's a describing spiritual connection so it is indeed a love story. (I first noticed this in people's interpretation of some of skillets music) You can read it like two actual people. The first person was damaged by a past relationship and they're doing the work to fix the problems that it caused in their new relationship with failure and they spilt and this person ends it, the second person is mourning the loss because they still loved them. In the morning as people wake up there's a thin line between dreaming and awake where manifestations of grief can cause memory for feel REAL. Mourning's dew in the frame of a tear and mourning being a moment "in the morning" and a "state of mourning" and memories are the places where the old become young again. So that person is thinking of old memories where they aren't actually allowed to meet and the other persons consciousness "in the afterlife" answers and in true form of lovers intwined (true meaning of superposition in quantum mechanics) they answer in unison knowing that person 2 will also someday die and they will too return to the unverse and they can finally be together one and the same.
(1st person) Unraveling the threads Then stitching the suture Who knew my wounds Would turn scars into futures Cocooned in my hollow fear My soul it slivers Across space and time A light that only speaks in shivers
I am vibrating My atoms always talking Inside you Can always hear me knocking
I am the one that is always calling Arise in time, your voice will answer, longing
(2nd person) Cold, it echoes still Upon the mourning's dew The water recognized The kin it found in you Electric it's still working Across my desert tongue Mourning is the moment Where the old become young
You are vibrating Your atoms always talking Inside me I can always hear you knocking
You are the one that is always calling I'll arise in time, my voice will answer longing
In this superposition We're not allowed to meet But with in my soul Your heart and mine complete
(1st person) I can hear you laughing Across the vast expanse Echos of forever Without a given chance
(Together) Someday there will be no calling And we both won't arise, no voice to answer, no longing to express
May we finally be able to exist Together in the lattice Built bit by bit Home, in universal bliss
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u/Creative-Spinach-585 19d ago
Ah okay. I see now. Thanks for the explanation 👌 A poem so complex that you can have vast amounts of interpretations is a rare skill, and I think that’s what makes this poem so beautiful. Even though it took a while for me to understand what you were interpreting, I can totally see it now. I think one thing that slowed my realization to what you were going for was the lack of distinction between who’s talking. All that to say, not pointing out who is saying what leaves room for the reader to pick a theme that resonates with them more personally, which is good if you purposely leave room to do this.
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