Guilt

[the facade]

Guilt

And your face a conveyor belt
for streaming tears
And I a factory worker belted
to the assembly line -
overlooking the production
yet culpable by birthright, or birthwrong.

And your drudgery
flows endlessly with intent
until it reaches
nothing but a reservoir
where Triviality bathes -
smoothened and reshaped -
by the erosion of your tears,
time immemorial.
And it sits there, purring
like a housecat with a soft underbelly,
lavished by the patting
of people and their longing.

And I have pumped my head
with helium, for a quick escape,
but I've become hot aired and hot tempered,
hollowed and haunted
by the child that I was
that grapples for the handle
of my balloon head.
The child that had high hopes
but stayed fixed to the ground.

[Delta40]

Excellent Facade. I especially like S1 & S3. The imagery is very powerful.

[the facade]

Thank you so much Delta, it is much appreciated.

[Hawkman]

Yes, you do have some nice imagery, but it's being undermined by all those ands (definitely a mistake) and some poor choices of expression. for example:

"yet culpable by birthright, or birthwrong."

the birthwrong thing comes over as too contrived - it over extends the line and also sounds like an afterthought. You don't need it.

"And your drudgery
flows endlessly with intent
until it reaches
nothing but a reservoir"

I'd cut 'with intent' and "nothing but" and change the indefinite article to 'the'. I don't like 'flows endlessly' when its followed by 'until it reaches'. Endlessly is contradicted by 'until'.

"your endless drudgery
flows into the
the reservoir..."

"where Triviality bathes -
smoothened and reshaped -
by the erosion of your tears,"

"Smoothened" is really horrible. This would be much better thus:

"...reshaped, eroded
- worn smooth by tears"

You don't really need to say your again; I feel it's sufficiently implied by the first line of the stanza. But what sits there? Time immemorial, triviality or drudgery? Any of the above might qualify because of the way the verse is structured. Whichever it is, the the pampered housecat image doesn't really fit because you've left it bathing. Not too many housecats enjoy bathing in anything wet!

"Child that I was that grapples..." try: "the child I that was, / who grapples for the handle..." also lose the full stop after head and replace it with a comma so that the the last two lines flow from their precursors.

A few flaws yes, but the bones of the poem are still pretty sound. The middle verse is the most problematic. You might want to give it a bit of a polish, but not bad.

Live and be well - H

[the facade]

Hawkman, I agree with most of what you said and I will definitely tend to it.
Thank you for writing such a constructive comment!