I Keep Beneath My Bed Our Picture, Jess

[justcloudy]

Hi alatos.

I'm by no means a sonnet expert so can't say much on that side of things.

Typical love sonnet I guess, but any advice is appreciated.

I Keep Beneath My Bed Our Picture, Jess

I keep beneath my bed our picture, Jess.
It is crumpled, with curled corners stained by
salty drops, the gloss long gone, torn, but less I love what I see in my head when I read this stanza.
cherished? Inconceivable! Never more. Why? This line is hard to take seriously.

An answer to that my words cannot give, This is a mess.
and my sharp reason falls short to explain Are you complimenting yourself?
why without you, it seems I cannot live,
and what life I do live is lived out in vain. No images here, pretty standard thoughts. This could much more interesting.

And why, in God's name, do I still look at it? This is a bit obvious, maybe you could do something more clever with in God's name if you want to keep it.
It stares back as blank as five minutes ago.
Your smile, those brown eyes break me, make me submit
and hold a bit longer, though I try to let go. These last two lines are unnecessarily wordy.

For your love lingers on as a sad memory
that I cannot shake: will I never be free? Almost there. I'm sure you can do something interesting with "shake".

I feel like this has a lot of potential. The middle lacks luster but the beginning and end aren't bad. Some work needs to be done but this could be very cool.

Just my thoughts.

-justcloudy