(Christian Lloyd-Kirk's Review of "Time Brought Cruel Change" by Christen Indelicato)
(Christian Lloyd-Kirk's Review of "Time Brought Cruel Change" by Christen Indelicato)
First off..This guy sounds like a royal dickbag. I'm glad you're rid of him. You certainly captured the narcissistic power play aspect that kept this relationship rolling. However, you could make this a lot more compelling by adding words and descriptions that are uniquely yours. The poem below lacks a personal signature because you're mulling out a lot cliches. Right off the bat...get rid of the words: sparks, false charms, passion and fire (especially adjacent to each other). Ask yourself if you wanted to communicate those same things but those words didn't exist, what else would you use? Lies and deceits that close to each other, are also redundant. Also without any use of simile, metaphor or illicit images...flat out saying abstract concepts like: contentment, desire, affection, Confusion, passion...they don't mean anything. It's like saying I felt__fill in the blank+a sparse adjective here and there over and over again but making it rhyme. Nobody cares but your therapist and loved ones. I'm not saying that to be mean but there's a way to make your experience powerful and relateable on paper...no matter what it is. This just isn't it. Doing a writing exercise with really narrow parameters would actually help you out a lot I think. For example, (and this is just an idea. Any equivalent will work)but let's say you were only allowed to write about a bug crossing the floor, but the ambition would be to convey you were talking about everything you've ever felt about this relationship. It's certainly challenging but if you tried writing about your relationship with nothing but a bug and a floor space to communicate..and really tried that once or twice, you could go back to writing about your relationship with no parameters/ all the imaginative head space in the world and it would come out a lot easier and a lot better.
There have been no honest interactions since he finally succumbed to the infection of a dark heart,
So here I am, faking my own contentment, once again wrapped tightly in his demanding arms.
There was a time in which I had the desire to rebuild our affections, long forgotten after previous sparks,
But, I have learned that to him it would mean nothing, he’d rather bend me with his false charms.
The nature of truth relies on trust, but such a thing has long been broken by his numerous deceits,
I once believed that he would treat me as an equal, that he would be unable to tell me lies.
Back then he said, “I love you with a passion, a fire with which no one would dare compete,”
Such words, when I thought him honest, left me wondering if others would ever be able to try.
I know many who have told me, sworn to me, that my leaving him would feel nothing like a loss.
But, he has me at the point of compliance; I am beaten, bruised. I forget who to trust, who to believe.
Each day I spend beneath his thumb I feel myself drift father away, abandoning my own thoughts,
I know that that is what he longs for; my silence, my confusion. I’ve become what he wants me to be.
He keeps telling me that I am what has brought us to this place, that I am at fault,
But finally I know that there is nothing that I have done to deserve his cruel assaults.
First off..This guy sounds like a royal dickbag. I'm glad you're rid of him. You certainly captured the narcissistic power play aspect that kept this relationship rolling. However, you could make this a lot more compelling by adding words and descriptions that are uniquely yours. The poem below lacks a personal signature because you're mulling out a lot cliches. Right off the bat...get rid of the words: sparks, false charms, passion and fire (especially adjacent to each other). Ask yourself if you wanted to communicate those same things but those words didn't exist, what else would you use? Lies and deceits that close to each other, are also redundant. Also without any use of simile, metaphor or illicit images...flat out saying abstract concepts like: contentment, desire, affection, Confusion, passion...they don't mean anything. It's like saying I felt__fill in the blank+a sparse adjective here and there over and over again but making it rhyme. Nobody cares but your therapist and loved ones. I'm not saying that to be mean but there's a way to make your experience powerful and relateable on paper...no matter what it is. This just isn't it. Doing a writing exercise with really narrow parameters would actually help you out a lot I think. For example, (and this is just an idea. Any equivalent will work)but let's say you were only allowed to write about a bug crossing the floor, but the ambition would be to convey you were talking about everything you've ever felt about this relationship. It's certainly challenging but if you tried writing about your relationship with nothing but a bug and a floor space to communicate..and really tried that once or twice, you could go back to writing about your relationship with no parameters/ all the imaginative head space in the world and it would come out a lot easier and a lot better.
There have been no honest interactions since he finally succumbed to the infection of a dark heart,
So here I am, faking my own contentment, once again wrapped tightly in his demanding arms.
There was a time in which I had the desire to rebuild our affections, long forgotten after previous sparks,
But, I have learned that to him it would mean nothing, he’d rather bend me with his false charms.
The nature of truth relies on trust, but such a thing has long been broken by his numerous deceits,
I once believed that he would treat me as an equal, that he would be unable to tell me lies.
Back then he said, “I love you with a passion, a fire with which no one would dare compete,”
Such words, when I thought him honest, left me wondering if others would ever be able to try.
I know many who have told me, sworn to me, that my leaving him would feel nothing like a loss.
But, he has me at the point of compliance; I am beaten, bruised. I forget who to trust, who to believe.
Each day I spend beneath his thumb I feel myself drift father away, abandoning my own thoughts,
I know that that is what he longs for; my silence, my confusion. I’ve become what he wants me to be.
He keeps telling me that I am what has brought us to this place, that I am at fault,
But finally I know that there is nothing that I have done to deserve his cruel assaults.