paint on the mirror

[Nyxx]

Oh weird. The way it posted it didn't have all the indentation I had edited it with. I dislike traditional stanzas as well. I hope you post the final edit! Can't wait to read more of yours!

hey everyone, thanks so much for reviewing the poem for me.

first of all (and I probably should have stated this in the original post), it's meant to be slam/spoken word, which is why I frequently used conjunctions (I want the feel of it to be rushed/breathless) and i'd love to keep that.  with that said, I'm going to reply to you all individually:

todd
I understand your stance on non-repetition of paint on the mirror in the first line, but I think i'd rather keep it here just since it's meant to be spoken word.  however, I do really appreciate your angle on breaking on strong nouns and verbs and do think that would help the poem.  I was trying to think of where I would pause if I was reading it out loud and i'll take a look how it feels off the tongue pausing at different points to make the poem stronger.
I get your suggestion about breaking up repetition of "paint on the mirror" with adding in color/other details, but since this is kind of a "panic mode/dissociation" piece, I'm going to leave that.
i'll look at the my hands are on his chest line and re-think that.  i agree with you, i think it could be better.

also, i agree with you on ending with "everyone asks why".  i think i'll need to grind into the poem a little bit more to bring out the trauma of the experience (like you suggested) to do that, but i agree, it'll make it more evocative.

nyxx
i definitely didn't notice the tense switches, so i'll read through and fix that, thank you!
your edit of the piece was absolutely lovely and i really enjoyed the way it read.  generally, i dislike traditional stanzas because i like to do slam and write things as i would read them.  you gave me some great ideas for re-arranging the syntax of the poem and adding some powerful visual pieces, though, so thank you.

divinemsemm
i won't address the articles as i did above, but i really like some of the changes that you made because you made the point of view a bit "hazy", which i think enhanced the drunken confusion of everything.  you gave me some ideas to incorporate into the revision, thank you.

also, i like your idea of putting it into present tense. i'll write it in both tenses and see which one works better.

kiwiyana
i'd like to keep most of the "ands" and other conjunctions, but since this was such a heavy comment i'll re-look it and see where i can drop it a few times (or use something else, maybe a bit more powerful).  i think this'll take a bit of reading out loud to figure out what different ways i can use to evoke the rushed pain of the situation.

poppoetry
not experience based, haha.  i appreciate your comment, thank you.

thank you everyone for your comments/revisions.  i hope i didn't come across as defensive because i truly appreciate all of the comments and suggestions that were made.  you all gave me quite a few things to think about to make this a better poem, so thank you!