Retract

Inspired by the feeling of the sun while reading a book outside in July.

Face up in the blades

Green in my fingers

Roll into the shade

The heat still lingers

 

Out of the bright

And out of the scorching

Just out of sight

My Fibers feel torching

 

For I am traveling in reverse

No way to live life

Back to the prime verse

I want back in the light.

Author's Note

This was the first piece I had ever written, I was around 15 years old. It is about the simplicity of the joy that warmth brings to you and when it's gone , you yearn for it back.

Reviews

[Emma Olsen]

I love how concise this is. haha It has a nice tone, though I think some of the language is a bit distracting. 'My fibers feel torching' is catching me, along with 'prime verse.' I think what's bothering me in the first is the way you use 'torching' and the second I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'prime verse,' but it sounds like some large, important concept. Maybe you just mean back to your book or something, but in the poem there's no mention of a book or book-like thingy until that point, so it sounds more like you're talking about going back to a way of life?
I think you can do a lot to buff up your images here. 'Green?' Psh, why not 'emerald' or 'lime' or something. You're giving me a nice concept here, definitely, but I think you have a wonderful chance to elaborate on a nice setting in a way that really draws out your larger metaphor and you're not quite committing to it. Your verbs are very nice, but I think you could throw in some adjectives and really make this much more fleshed out. =) I think, too, that the realization in the last stanza is feeling a bit sudden to me right now . . . ? I think it's because I only get this sense of relief from not being in the light and then the speaker is very melancholy. Maybe add in another stanza to show some dissatisfaction from the growing cold? Or maybe some hint of motivation as to why the speaker yearns for it back, exactly? Somehow it seems this poem wants to speak to larger concepts, but that might be the poem trying to exert its own force on this or something since you said you want this to be simple. =P

[jayLiz]

I definitely agree with you on a lot of the technical stuff, this is a sort of unedited thrown together piece that I found on my laptop, which I didn't have the heart to change because it was one of the first things I had written. The torching part is how I am describing that burning feeling you have within when you want something so badly you can almost feel it (in this case the suns' heat) sort of concept. Then the prime verse part was referencing wanting back in the sunlight by going back to the first verse of the poem where I am in the light of the sun. :)

[Emma Olsen]

Ahhh . . . you were going kinda meta with it, I see. Well, hopefully you can use whatever I gave you for a future piece. =)