The Hallway

Depressing,

         quiet,

         desolate.

 

Dim lights,

       wind echoing,

                                      creaking floors.

 

There I sit, in such a place, all alone.

Your footsteps have disappeared and your shadow no more, yet,

your spirit lingers next to me.

 

Your breath is emotionless, and your touch still haunts me,

so I close my eyes, but your shape remains.

 

Memories stuck on replay, voice on max volume,

my tears rain down as I beg for your embrace.

 

You smile at my pain, you dig the knife deeper,

and all I can do is sit in silence as I wait for you to clean up the mess you made.

 

Instead though, the mess expands, and my soul begins to puddle while my heart slows down

and then one by one, the lights go out

       leaving nothing, but

      permanent

 DARKNESS.

Author's Note

Got inspired by this piece when I was sitting by myself in a hallway waiting for one of my classes to start today. Hope you like it!

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A powerful poem. The poem started with struggle and got more deep into loneliness and pain. No weakness in this poem. A lot of struggle and heading off in the wrong direction. A very good ending to a excellent poem.
Coyote

[David Michael]

Overall, cool piece and cool effect. It's not often I see dark poetry - depressing, emotional, "break up", sure, but not dark. The ending was especially effective.

Some thoughts:

"Depressing, quiet, desolate" - While I like the way the sound flows, I'd much prefer the first two words switched. When switched, I like the increase in power, the descent [into madness]. "Quiet" seems less effective or less meaningful a concept when following "depressing". The second triplet works this way, at least for me, with "creaking floors" seeming the creepiest or most ominous, "dim lights" the least. I don't know how you would fix this, since "Quiet, depressing, desolate" doesn't flow sound-wise nearly as well. But I'd recommend trying.

"However" seems strange, as a transition word, a contrasting word. It doesn't seem to fit in context. I think I get your meaning - despite how creepy and dark it is, you sit there anyways. Right? I just don't think "however" conveys this.

One thing I think could be worked on is wording. The tone and effectiveness of this piece so depends on strong - no scratch that, the perfect - wording. For instance, your first "stanza" (about sitting alone) seemed almost sweet, tender. It wasn't until I read the whole thing that I realized the true tone of the piece. So instead of "lingers", you could use a word like "clings" - "your spirit clings to the air beside me", or for a different twist "to my diminishing air".

Other spots: "and, nevertheless" could just be "yet". "Goes away" conveys very little emotion. Depending on what you wanted, it could be something more like "I close my eyes yet I'm not left in peace" or "everything keeps tormenting" or "nothing departs my sight".... I don't know, just possibilities. But all stronger than "goes away".

Another way to strengthen it, to shock your reader more, is to avoid cliches. I have a professor who obsessives over this point, and I find him somewhat silly for it, but it has made me more aware of them, and I think my writing has improved because of it. So for instance, both "breath like ice" and "chills down my spine" are quite cliche. Come up with something original and breathtaking.

Here's a thought: Instead of "you smile at my pain", how does "your smile is my pain" or "pains me" sound to you? An example of more shocking and potentially more effective wording.

I like the wording "my soul starts to puddle" - that's effective imagery! But "slows down" could be stronger, like "languishes" or "falters" or "crawls on".

Anyways, as I said at the beginning, I did like this. I hope my comments help, I hope you can use some of them (or you're willing to use some of them; I know it can be hard to change something you've grown attached to). Thanks for the read request!

[Gypsie]

Such a struggle ending in darkness, the desolation winning out. I have to say I enjoyed your play with words as visual structure to your poem. Nice work! And to know you were inspired while waiting for class makes it all the more fun.

[Dark Beauty]

Wonderful excellent piece here with great ending! Good job

[Personne]

This is excellent! I loved it, and I really like how you did the first few words and the last few. It really impacted on me(:

[heart of an angel]

i love it!! its a powerful poem i could read it a couple of times and not be bored of it ...good work i hope to read some more poems

[Megan]

Wow, this was really spooky..in a good way :D I really liked how it made me think of ghosts haha. This was a great write, it was really imaginative and in turn made me imagine. It was also a lot of fun to read and kept my attention. Thanks for posting this!

[M Garcia]

liked this

[Poeticpiers]

You capture the ambience of being alone in an empty space most descriptively

[WritersSoul]

Its good :) I like it and its very powerful on the actual feeling :)
Beth :3

[Beautifully Tragic xPoe..]

Powerful, emotional write. Nicely done.