my heartbeat.

[organizedchaos]

The tea light
His sweet lemon grass breath
and the flimsy feather blanket that covers us on his bedroom floor
His face grazes across my skin
I let him explore
He stops abruptly by my chest.
Shocked, he said he's never heard a heart beat so loud.
He quickly pressed his left ear to my skin,
held it there for a long piece of frozen time,
and looked up at me
A tear drop sparkling in the crevice of his left eye
"It hasn't changed"
This doesn't surprise me
because rather than making me nervous
he stabilizes me
I pulled him closer
Encouraging my heart to jump into his mouth
and rest it in between his teeth
because for once, I trust it there.

[blank|verse]

A nicely evocative poem of a moment of intimacy, oc.

I felt the opening and ending were both strong, but felt the middle was a bit weaker as it tended to laspe into prose. Part of this is to do with the rather functional descriptions - does the reader need to know it's his 'left' ear? And the whole line 'He quickly pressed his left ear to my skin,' is a bit weak, to be honest. Have you heard of the general advice to 'show' rather than 'tell' in poetry?

For example, in these lines, you're 'telling' the reader directly what the narrator of the poem is thinking:

This doesn't surprise me
because rather than making me nervous
he stabilizes me
I would suggest possibly cutting these lines out and going straight into:

I pulled him closer
Encouraging my heart to jump into his mouth
and rest it in between his teeth
because for once, I trust it there.
These lines 'show' the reader the narrator's feelings more, and contain more poetry because of the imaginative use of figurative language.

I hope you find that helpful; and I'm sure there are many people on the forum who will enjoy this poem as well. :)

[hillwalker]

I agree with b|v's points.

Also it was rather distracting to have the change in tense
from present tense in the first 6 lines (covers us - His face grazes - I let him explore - He stops)
to past tense (he said - He quickly pressed - held it - looked up).

But there are also some wonderful phrases in your poem -

'flimsy feather blanket' - the sounds of the words themselves make you feel a sense of serenity

and the closing 3 lines make for a memorable image of absolute love.

Extremely enjoyable,

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I agree with most of the comments of the preceding 2 posters and want, especially, to express my appreciation of those final 3 lines.

[Buh4Bee]

These are good comments. I find it often hard to show and not tell. You need to become the moment and write from the emotions. It is the hardest lesson a writer needs to learn.