I’m gonna take of the sequins you decorated my eyes with.
Pull off the spider’s legs you once grew for eyelashes.
I’ve never seen a monster with soft skin before now.
Before you told me, I never knew that moths were actually dead butterflies.
Before the age of eight, I never knew that moths were actually dead butterflies.
Before yesterday, I never knew that moths were actually dead butterflies, that searched for their heaven in artificial lights.
That night you reminded me of a moth, distracted by the dim of the room and I was the only light – so you rummaged through my Johnson baby wiped skin searching for gold, hoping the colours I was paved in would polish your wedding finger.
That night you had hands that lit up like romance in Paris, fingertips that twisted my diamond shaped heart into a box.
You told me I should run away with you – into my dreams.
You gave me dirty paws, and I saw, for the first time,
the dark side of me.
I waited for you to leave…
Hummed songs as I built an igloo in the cold of the room.
I crawled inside, and rested my head in the pillows of my gorilla’s chest, he mumbled stories, as we ate pizza and drank lemonade.
I’ve never seen a saviour with rough skin before now.
He banged his chest to the beat of the rain outside, and told me to clean my dirty paws on his black chesty pillows – explained that nobody will see my filthiness on the dark of his leather.
He looked into my eyes filled with raging waterfalls, then hushed the rain and winked at the stars to show their excellence.
by simone estridge
The MOUTHY Poets blog 
Hey Simone,
Firstly, I am so sorry it has taken me so long to get to this. Illness has left me putting all my energy into my day to day teaching/performance work. But I am here and hopefully this feedback is of some use before the show next week! If not, then hopefully the feedback will transfer to other pieces in the future.
This poem is AWESOME. I think it is just about giving it a form and cleaning up the images you have in the poem and maybe cutting out a few here and there to highlight how great the strongest ones are. Really great to see such a massive amount of development from you 🙂 I look forward to hearing it!
LOVE
-The wildness of the images. I feel like the influence of Carolien Bird has really helped refine your ability to build up magical images into characters and stories.
-The concept of spider leg eye lashes is awesome!
-The monster line is amazing; it brings together fantasy with the every day in a way that sets your reader up for a sense of magic realism. I also think these images are really driving a sense of character forward. This is a great and rare skill to have!
-The concept of dead butterlies and heaven – all magical! How do you come up with these things? They really pull me in. I would love it if you could articulate each idea in an even clearer way so the audience/reader can get them in as tight a way as possible. I have given some suggestions on how to do this in the questions section 🙂
-I like the way you then begin to weave the images into a story… “The nigh you reminded me of a moth” and “I was the only light” in fact I think those lines are so strong, I think they could work like this…
The night you were a moth,
I was the only light.
-There are so many amazing layers to that image, give it as much space as possible!
-Great use of specificity, which I think makes the fantasy elements feel particularly embedded in every day life and therefore somehow more real. I love Johnson’s baby wiped in particular.
-This whole section is FANTASTIC…
“Hummed songs as I built an igloo in the cold of the room.
I crawled inside, and rested my head in the pillows of my gorilla’s chest, he mumbled stories, as we ate pizza and drank lemonade.”
-I love the use of a cyclical form – bringing in the rough skin and the savior, lovely contrast which brings in a sense of resolution.
-This line, also amazing and great illustration of bringing all the language in a poem together to create a satisfying end “He banged his chest to the beat of the rain outside, and told me to clean my dirty paws on his black chesty pillows – explained that nobody will see my filthiness on the dark of his leather.” … in fact I love it so much, could it finish there and cut the last lines you do have?
QUESTIONS
-Have you ever looked at the way you structure your sentences? And looked at using line breaks or punctuation to make them clearer? Do you think about these things when you are writing? I think exploring these things would make this poem stronger. I have played around and I think that having two line stanza’s with short line lengths really works for this piece. Have a go at putting it into the form, I have kicked things off for you. What do you think?
Take off your sequins,
they decorate my eyes.
Pull off the spider’s legs
you grew for eyelashes.
I’ve never seen a monster
with soft skin. Before now
You told me. I never knew:
Moths are dead butterflies.
-Whilst doing the edit above I also noticed that you often use more words than you need to. Trying doing the redundancy exercise here, https://mouthypoets.wordpress.com/2012/04/, I think it will really help you refine this poem.
-Why do you bring up Romance in Paris? It is such a cliche and the rest of the piece is so magically original? I don’t think you need it! Concentrate on tightening up the images and action you do have with the suggested methods above?
SUGGESTIONS
-I am not sure about “that night” up to “the dark side of me” … what is happening here? Can you clarify it and add some more original image like that of the rest of the poem?
I hope this helps?
Debris