My First Poem

[PettyPoet]

I created this poem about 5 minutes ago.

Please give me any and all critique.

Many thanks.

Naive and young I was, when I first met her

Immediately, I was captivated by her wondrous allure

Every chance I got to stare, I stole it like a thief

As my eyes were dumfounded in a profound disbelief

This girl did not know I even existed in space

Which is ironic, because she granted me amnesty from time and place

One day, when I was lost in her angelic trance

Her eyes met mine, and my heart started to prance

She cast an embarrassed smile and then looked down

How stupid I was, I thought myself a clown

It amazed me how a single, momentary glance

Could force every fiber in my being into a vivacious dance

I had no idea what was happening to me because

She made me reconsider everything I ever thought I was

Later that week, she told me she had a secret that I have to promise not to tell

I swore to it, as my anxiety started to swell

She said that she carried a little girl’s crush

My face turned a crimson, as I started to blush

She drew a deep breath and slowly let it all out

She said I am the guy she is talking about

At that very moment, I was lost in an unreal blissful sea

I was enraptured with an overpowering ecstasy

I told her that the feeling was mutual in every possible way

I have no idea what happened later that very day

All I remember is her infectious smile I know so well

I was enveloped in her divine spell

From that moment on, she was with me wherever I went

Her contagious personality plagued my mind, despite any event

The next four incredible weeks of my life were all with her by my side

I came to the epiphany that I loved this girl for who she was, not her hair that she died

Her ridiculous beauty, incredible body, and provoking looks were what started our romance

But, should that not have been so, they would not affect my stance

I fell for her, not what she wore

Her loving, caring, funny personality is what I adore

I told her she’d still be my mine

Even if she was fat, buck-toothed, and her mouth a crooked line

My friends thought I was losing my mind

They kept on asking me how I could be that blind

They simply did not understand what love meant to me

It came about from the small things, such as drinking tea

It came about from moments, like when she sat next to me

I’ll never forget the time when I was crying and distraught

With tears blurring my vision, she knew I was overwrought

She sat next to me and told me it would be okay

She rubbed my shoulder regardless of my attempts to get away

She handed me an item to wipe my tears

No one would have done this for me, not in a hundred years

She handed me her small, red, glove

That is love

As petty as that may appear

There lay not a single demur

I knew that I loved this girl, ever so

It felt as if I had met her, long long ago

She told me that in order to love another, she must love herself; she must know

This took a while for me to understand

The abstractness sure had my mind to bend

I wondered how she could not love her person

It seemed obvious to me, there was nothing that could possibly worsen

The next thing I knew, she told me it had to end

My whole being was ripped in half; impossible to mend

Everything I thought I knew was not true any longer

She flipped my world upside down as if she was stronger

I never had experienced anything like this

It was, as if I was being sucked into a deep, heartless abyss

I wanted to do everything to save our connection

But she evidently no longer holds her old affection

I trust that she will advocate for herself; she knows best

Despite how much I detest

I want her to be happy, even if it’s not with me

I felt as if our love was the beginning of a tree

I expected it to grow old, attaining many rings

But she uprooted it with the power of one-thousand flippant kings

I should not have let myself get too involved

My reality has completely dissolved

Nothing will help, not even the liqueur

I simply cannot defer

There is one last thing that I must do…

How Do I Forget Her?

[cidermaid]

Hi PettyPoet,
I wrote a few notes for you a moment ago and then just as i pushed the post button my internet connection crashed and now i'm trying to remember what i wrote first time around !
My main observation was that although i thought your subject choice was fine, the layout and length of the block of text was slightly off putting. (Longer poems are fine but they really need to hook the reader in with strong images and original thoughts to hold the attention in my opinion). Also I felt that the double spacing did not really add anything to the presentation and the lack of line breaks meant that it would have been very difficult to read aloud. (No pauses for breathing!). Perhaps you could consider breaking this down into some stanzas and also perhaps try and condense some of the ideas and thoughts...distill them into images and pictures rather than telling us.
As ever these are just my thoughts and opinions. Please do not be discouraged. You have some nice end rhymes and i particularly liked the image of love as a tree with growth rings.
Thanks for posting this AJ.

[PettyPoet]

Thank you cidermaid, I really appreciate you taking the time to provide me with feedback.

What is a stanza? What do you mean distill them into images? Am I supposed to add punctuation?

[cidermaid]

OH OK
Stanza is a unit or block of text within a poem. I think of them like a mini paragraph...but I'm odd.
Try looking into some of the poetry practice pages for examples of stanzas.
By distilled I mean think about trying to put as much information into as few words as possible.
Cut out surplus words and make every word you use work hard to present an image. (An easy way to get into this pattern of thought is to use like or as in your creative thought process).
And yes punctuation is often crucial to making a poem work. There is quite a lot of bickering and back n forth that goes on in the threads concerning this subject....some people seem to have a lot of issues about where the commas should be placed.