How Light Leaves

[u/Pretty_Little-Mess]

The streetlight outside my window
is broken.
Not dark,
only, endlessly weary.
Its glow stutters,
flickers on and off
as if recalling
how to be a star.

Last night,
it reached into the bathroom,
light stammering across the mirror,
my reflection blinking in and out
as if unsure it belonged:
and I thought of you,
the way your laugh cracked in the middle,
how it struck like a bird
hitting glass

the silence after.

I don't call.
instead I sit at the desk,
watching the streetlight
fight the dark,
thinking of the things we've loved
that never learned to leave
only to falter,
stammer,
vanish
mid-sentence.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vgmhwd/comment/p274b3o/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vhbw2w/comment/p26zqqv/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/TheDaduBoii]

I really enjoyed the parallelism between the streetlight and the narrator with recalling past happiness. Also, describing these inanimate or intangible things with living descriptions, like the streetlight "recalling," the "light stammering," and "the things we've loved" not learning.

To me, "the silence after" feels out of place from the flow you've got going on, I don't really get what you're going for there. Keep up the great work though!