Young Writers Society

Part of a bunch of poems inspired by uncommon strangers

Dreams on pause
And patience wrung,
Dripping with Purell.
Same goes for patients
And you,
With the piercing.
I can tell you now,
They'll make you take it out.
They'll expose the perforated girl
Sitting across from this aged boy.

Our brains have all
Discovered the knives.

Strangers that hate
and love hell,
Hate and love each other.
I think I love you.
We are strangers
And each other
And everyone without an ending--
Continuing in dismembered ears,
Paintings of spit and lead,
Books and broken ovens.
Get to know me,
I know I love you.
But when you learn my name
We'll be strangers once again.

I liked this . I was able to see it in my head very well, though I am having trouble grasping the emotion of it. I can tell that there is a lot there, I just can't grasp it.
Here are my suggestions:


Dreams on pause
And patience wrung,
Dripping with purel. Proper noun, check spelling and capitalize.
Same goes for patients
And you, This throws the meter off, maybe combine it with the line below?
With the piercing.
I can tell you now,
They'll make you take it out.
They'll expose the perforated girl This word, as good as it sounds in the situation, but doesn't fit the meter.
Sitting across from the fragmented boy.

I would put a break here for a new stanza.

What claws pierced your barriers?
A shadow? A reflection?
A demon? Or did your brain
Discover the knives?
Strangers that hate
and love hell,
Hate and love each other.
I think I love you.
We are strangers
And each other
And everyone without an ending--
Continuing in dismembered ears,
paintings of spit and lead,
Books and misguided children.

I would break here for another stanza

Get to know me,
I know I love you.
Learn my name
And we will be strangers once again.


This was really good, and had a deep meaning. My biggest critique is simply the stanza thing, and this poem could be broken up so many ways, so find what works best for you .

Very beautiful metaphors. I love the writing style- it's very cryptic, leaving the readers to guess what it means. Wonderful.

Dripping with Purell.

Interesting image. My only quibble would be that not everyone knows that Purell is a brand of hand sanitizer, so you risk this image going over some readers' heads.

Same goes for patients

Now this line is unclear in meaning. Are the patients wrung out, dripping with Purell, or paused?

Sitting across from this aged boy.

This line feels very unnecessary, and it also interrupts the reading flow of the poem.

Our brains have all
Discovered the knives.

These two lines also feel unnecessary. They don't really contribute much to the poem, aside from being there. I'd suggest cutting them.

Strangers that hate
and love hell,
Hate and love each other.

If we were to write this line out in regular form, we'd have a randomly floating comma. This isn't the only randomly floating comma you have in this poem, and having random commas floating around interrupts the flow of ideas in the poem. Poetry generally follows the same writing conventions as regular prose, and not following those conventions without good reason can lead to an awkward flow of ideas, reading, or both.

And each other

Did you perhaps mean "to each other"? Otherwise, this line makes no sense.

Get to know me,

Comma splice. A semicolon or a dash would work better here.

But when you learn my name
We'll be strangers once again.

These last two lines are my favorite and make for a nice reversal. I also liked how simply stated they were. It really adds to their impact.

Overall, I wonder why you capitalize the first letter of almost every line. It makes each line feel almost like its own sentence, and considering how heavily enjambed this poem is, this breaks up the flow of ideas because it makes each line stand separated from the others. How a poem looks affects how it is read, and right now, the visual separation makes the poem as a whole feel disjointed. Considering that breaking a line adds a natural pause as the reader's eyes move from the end of that line to the beginning of the next, and that capitalization usually indicates the start of a new sentence, there's a pretty substantial pause and disconnect between lines that deal with the same flow of ideas.

I'd suggest not capitalizing the start of every line, unless it is also the start of a new sentence. This will help keep related lines looking and feeling related, rather than feeling separate and disjointed.

thanks! actually poetry traditionally is supposed to have the first letter of every line capitalized, but it's optional if it's contemporary; it's kind of just a habit for me, i guess. and the part that goes "and each other" is exactly what it says, they are strangers AND they are each other... it's not literal.