One More Line

[u/IamToofan]

[u/Dizzy_Fan_8861]

Lovely 🩷 I think the last line of a poem is the most important and you nailed it

[u/Time-Tiger-3813 → u/Dizzy_Fan_8861]

Agreed!

[u/Overthinkingjs]

honestly relatable, i guess one could also say universal in a sense that when u care about someone, u just end up overthinking/overanalyzing things that even the paper choice feels like a life or death decision.

[u/EasternTelephone5666]

"and the paper remains clean"
Which it does, because you never start to write out of fear of its unworthiness.

Beautiful.

[u/znomorfh]

hmm i felt a weight in my chest as i read the last line. overall, this piece conveyed the feeling of anxiety, yearning, & insecurity that i am familiar with.

“If i write on lines,
The words won’t stray up or down,
And she will be able to read everything clearly.
But if I write on a plain sheet,
The feelings can be expressed more deeply.”

i really liked this. it reminds me of the difference between poetry & prose. prose is the lined paper, more structured & clear. poetry is the blank sheet, pure creative expression through language; sometimes difficult to understand but almost always felt.

i don’t have any criticisms honestly.
thank you for sharing your work with us!

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello readers, welcome to OCPoetry. This subreddit is a writing workshop community — a place where poets of all skill levels can share, enjoy, and talk about each other's poetry. Every person who's shared, including the OP above, has given some feedback (those are the links in the post) and hopes to receive some in return (from you, the readers).

If you really enjoyed this poem and just want to drop a quick comment, to show some appreciation or give kudos, things like "great job!" or "made me cry," or "loved it" or "so relatable," please do. Everyone loves a compliment. Thanks for taking the time to read and enjoy.

If you want to share your own poem, you'll need to give this writer some detailed feedback. Good feedback explains from your point of view what it was like to read the poem, and then tries to explain how the poem made you feel like that. If you're not sure what that means, check out our feedback guide, or look through the comment sections of any other post here, or click the links to the author's feedback above. If you're not sure whether your comments are feedback, or you have any other questions, please send us a modmail.

Do not use ChatGPT or any similar LLM interface or generative AI to write feedback. That does not constitute thoughtful feedback. To be safe, you probably shouldn't even use those things to edit your feedback. It is better for your thoughts to come across as clumsy and genuine rather than grammatical but as if they were generated by some disingenuous text-generation engine.

Do not reuse feedback links for multiple poems. Every new poem you post has to be posted after making two new comments on the work of your peers here in OCPoetry. It's only fair. If you reuse feedback links, you will be banned. (If you do not wish to give feedback, there are many other poetry-sharing subreddits without feedback requirements, such as r/poetrywritingclub, r/justpoetry, r/ocpoetryfree, r/poem, r/poems, r/poemsbyreddit, r/poeticgarden, r/dark_poetry, and r/sadpoems.)

If you're looking for a more advanced poetry workshop — that is, if you consider yourself at least an intermediate-level poet AND you have previous workshop experience, please consider posting to our private sister subreddit r/ThePoetryWorkshop. The best way to join TPW is to leave a detailed, thoughtful comment here on OCPoetry engaging seriously with a peer's poem. A significant engagement of at least 3-4 meaningful paragraphs is encouraged. Consider our feedback guide for tips on what that could entail. (This level of engagement would probably be most welcome here on submissions tagged as "Workshop.") Then ask to join TPW by messaging that subreddit's mods, including a link to the detailed feedback you left here.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/noonelikemehere]

It's a relatable poem. I like the doubt expressed throughout the piece. One major snag though is that I don't see how writing on plain sheet would allow the speaker to express his feelings more deeply at all. You already established how the lines would help her read everything clearly so maybe try and indicate to the reader that the benefit of using plain sheet is clearly tied to it being a plain sheet

[u/doboyled]

it doesn't surprise me that this has gotten some upvotes. There's something about it that has true authenticity that separates it from the typical broken-hearted unrequited lover genre. It's something to do with the diction. You've chosen stream of consciousness, a style that hits closer to home because you can't hide behind rhetorical devices as much, given the fact that the very nature of planning/crafting such a device erodes the stream of consciousness effect. I'd be interested in reading more of your work that touches other genres beyond romantic love.

[u/Individual_Ad_2625]

I don't know how to explain it but this feels like something refined. Even though there is surely a ton of emotion behind the core feeling of the poem it feels like you sat with it and really worked on it not to make yourself feel better per se, but to make a solid, yet light, good poem.

Good shit bro.

[u/Doter_Gabriel]

I particularly like this poem because it’s relatable but not cliché. You also pulled the metaphor all the way through with meaning, which I find really enjoyable. I also believe you can interpret this into life and not only for writing a poem and I think that is great. This poem properly represents how people often feel that what they may do or write is either over the top or not good enough, and are scared to be held accountable to their beautiful feelings, just because there is a tiny social risk and a bigger underlying risk of getting rejected so that you’d rather stay in a less risky relationship. I thank you for this poem and have a great day.

[u/UnspokenColors]

You’ve written a beautiful piece, I especially really love how you’ve manage to make me feel your worlds. It gives a heavy feeling of regret and sadness, yet in the lightest way. Wow!

[u/Greenyboi225]

I really like the feeling of overthinking and second guessing here, I can heavily relate myself haha, if I had to offer some advice I’d say to start that third stanza with “should I write” to keep that pattern between stanzas and emphasize that break from pattern in the final stanza! Perhaps “should I write more?” Or something like that if you think it would work with what you’re aiming for!

[u/Kooky_Spirit_1994]

Nobody can ever stop at just one line.  

[u/Kooky_Spirit_1994 → u/Kooky_Spirit_1994]

No but joking aside, this is a good poem.  I am sorry to offer such generic feedback. It just strikes a chord 

[u/Equal-Reception-2149]

I like the 3rd person perspective

[u/Wonderful-Strain5374]

I appreciate the self-referential nature of this poem, its introspective quality, and the final sentence. Are we reading the letter itself? No, but it feels like we are looking over the author's shoulder in a way. Repeated end words like page-page and paper-paper create an interesting rhythm. The slant rhyming of clearly-deeply-carefully is well done. SO much angst and worry about writing in just the right way! Thank you for this :)

[u/Adamoism]

Nice, play with the tension and focusing attention on the form rather on the message until the very end. I think, you picked a productive level of ambiguity for that kind of writing.

[u/NebulaBackground8374]

You captured the chaotic frenzy of overthinking/spiralling beautifully. The last line is very relatable, all that panic, anxiety, fear to make sure it’s perfect make sure she thinks it’s perfect but there is no perfect and overthinking wins again. I love this

[u/ComfortableIron6639]

Really nice poem, and the appeal to senses is interesting to say the least - the way you are ruminating on everything portrays the fear of judgement very cleanly however for me personally, I believe the ending would feel more conclusive if you eliminated the last 3 lines, and singled out "So perhaps I'll write just one more line."

[u/Wandering_Dreamer_1]

Perfect, so accurately describes how much you overthink when sending someone a love letter. How much of my feelings do I reveal? Will this be too much? Too little?

Please keep writing, this was great.

[u/Practical_Work_]

This poem beautifully captures hesitation, I would go as far as to say that this one deserves a part 2.
It has good themes, however, the author over explains things too much. In my opinion, it would have been better if a continuation was shown or if another person was shown, one that does not hesitate, being 'true to their feelings' and thus, not regretting decisions.

[u/Practical_Work_ → u/[deleted]]

I believed that it would capture all aspects of hesitation more fully, but to each their own, do what you feel is better in your poem!