In all honesty, the repetitions in the first stanza are deadwood, and the poem would read much better without them. I mean, they have a great musicality on its own, but since that device doesn't play out again in another part of the poem, they're just filling space. Whether it's a beautiful or a heavy space is an argument all of its own, but if you take out the repetitions, and simply have it read:
"Four months since you've been gone.
I'm still holding on:
To you, your memory;
To hope, my sanity.
I wonder if you see me"
You still get a strong musicality, similar to the one you have already, but you also make the message stronger and set the stage better for the rest of the poem, which reads beautifully. The other eradication of a repetition that I suggest is that singular repetition of "I wonder if you see me" between Stanzas "4" and "6". Because that is your main repetition, and a scrumptious one at that, you don't need to repeat it after having done so at the end of the previous stanza. The following stanza brilliantly forgoes that repetition and you bring it back in a manner of speaking for the kicker of the ending. But unless this is a song, and the accompanied melody/music is fueling the piece's life, that singular line bearing the core repetition is not needed. It just weighs it down, because the poem's flow always lands hard on those repetitions, so it's not wise to overdo them by having two of them appear consecutively.
But overall, holy freaking kwap!! This is divine. "They say desperate people need faith" - I stand by this statement. I believe in this statement. I've had nothing but faith for a long time, and nothing has come of it yet. But Lord knows I still keep trying. Well done!! Looking forward to reading more.
Finding out we aren't invulnerable after all is hard to bear. Having paths you walk changedemonstrates how little we control events around us - even the ones central to our self-understandings.
In all honesty, the repetitions in the first stanza are deadwood, and the poem would read much better without them. I mean, they have a great musicality on its own, but since that device doesn't play out again in another part of the poem, they're just filling space. Whether it's a beautiful or a heavy space is an argument all of its own, but if you take out the repetitions, and simply have it read:
"Four months since you've been gone.
I'm still holding on:
To you, your memory;
To hope, my sanity.
I wonder if you see me"
You still get a strong musicality, similar to the one you have already, but you also make the message stronger and set the stage better for the rest of the poem, which reads beautifully. The other eradication of a repetition that I suggest is that singular repetition of "I wonder if you see me" between Stanzas "4" and "6". Because that is your main repetition, and a scrumptious one at that, you don't need to repeat it after having done so at the end of the previous stanza. The following stanza brilliantly forgoes that repetition and you bring it back in a manner of speaking for the kicker of the ending. But unless this is a song, and the accompanied melody/music is fueling the piece's life, that singular line bearing the core repetition is not needed. It just weighs it down, because the poem's flow always lands hard on those repetitions, so it's not wise to overdo them by having two of them appear consecutively.
But overall, holy freaking kwap!! This is divine. "They say desperate people need faith" - I stand by this statement. I believe in this statement. I've had nothing but faith for a long time, and nothing has come of it yet. But Lord knows I still keep trying. Well done!! Looking forward to reading more.