Autopsy

[Nast]

But yes, I also spent the day in my muumuu, eating bonbons and watching reruns of Lucy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But yes, I also spent the day in my muumuu, eating bonbons and watching reruns of Lucy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I can definitely see what you mean by cutting out the first four lines and the in-between lines and I'll definitely do that when I edit. What I would like to know though is where are there cliches? And also, why would you cut out the first and last stanza? There is a lot of meaning in both of those stanzas, but apparently that's not very clear, so how do I make it clearer/better presented so I don't have to cut them out?

"Scalpel to my heart" is cliche. "Peeling back layers" is cliche. It's very difficult to write about love, pain, growth or rebirth without invoking cliches... but if you want to write about those topics, it's necessary to learn how to use imagery that doesn't come across like a Nine Inch Nails song.

The last stanza was very telly; "I did this and this and this" and weakened the stronger stanzas. Instead of telling what you did, try showing what happened.

[The Great Pope of OUTSIDE]

This is a story.
I was swallowed by a lion as a young child
He told me that freedom wasn't everything
That pain and love are important too.
I felt the earth beneath his paws
And saw the stars through his eyes.
And I loved the earth.


This is a story.
I carried the forest gently in my hand
Over an age of destruction
Where all the world was desert and smoke.
So when the dust settled down and
The fire ants were gone, I allowed
A single, precious seed to drop to the earth
And the forest began anew.


This is a story.
I created a universe from spools of thread
Stringing a mobile of stars
I hung it from the fingers of a god.
I kissed his lips in my dream, and fled
To a barren world of safety.


This is a story.
I destroyed the stars
Pulled one into the other until I created
A domino chain of supernovas.
I created the brightest dawn in the universe
But the night thereafter was without hope
And the universe existed in terror of itself.


This is a truth
There is nothing left
In the universe but fables of existence,
Only a black hole where the devil lives
Swallowing me inside, and no one
Could hear my demon screams, gnashing teeth.
In his mouth I imploded
Crushing myself into the emptiness.


And the universe began anew
Without me.

~*EDITED*~
I took out the first stanza and all the in between stanzas. Like Nigel said, they were cliche, and the "you" added almost nothing worthwhile to the poem, other than being an observer, and the reader already fills that role. I left the lion stanza and the last stanza because I still think those are important to the meaning of the poem, but I edited the last stanza so hopefully it's less "telly" (The first stanza is supposed to be like that, so I left it the way it was.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Better.

The last stanza degenerates it into pure emo, you might want to work on that. Anything about cutting, bleeding, screaming, and people not being able to hear you... yeah, you get my drift. It's all on the same list.

Next; now that you have a nice repetition theme going, which I like, you probably want to make all the stanzas the same length and work on rhythm, especially spoken rhythm. Your lines don't all have to have a consistent number of syllables, though that is an easy beginner cheat; what you're looking for is a consistent cadence. Are you familiar with metric measure? Read your poem aloud several times. If possible, record it and play it back to yourself. Find the rhythm, and where there is awkwardness, rewrite the line until it has the right flow.

[The Great Pope of OUTSIDE]

This is a truth
All that remained in a universe
Filled with lies, was the devil's smile
With hell-fire and void, and I
Crawled into the crevice of his teeth,
Crushing myself into the emptiness.

Any better?

Secondly, you're right, I really don't have much of a consciousness of meter and rhyme, and I probably should, but the thing is, it bothers me to write like that, because I don't yet know how to write with a set meter or rhyme scheme and still have the poem flow smoothly, so I write in free verse as best I can. But that's DEFINITELY something I need to work on.