Wonderful job with this poem, great describtion, really liked reading it

Oh Xanthe I just love this. Your language use is just astounding. The opening stanza really captures the image of the fire and the blaze but also a kinf of ritual of worship for things that are no good for us. Very powerful.

I love the second stanza because it shows the battle of wanting to escape but getting trapped between your heart and mind and therefor become improsoned in this torture you explain. It made me think that we actually put our heart at risk every time we take a chance on something and risk that it could be set on fire. Love this wording here.

I really liked your ending and how you actually compared yourself to the fire and how you desrire the same things. It holds a deep depression in the lines in which you are struggling to escape from and towards the end of the poem I can feel the emotion of helplessness and wanting to give in.

I adore this <3 great job!

I was likening this to our bushfire season for I see that you live in Australia too and you would be able to use this as a metaphor in your poems but....this line leads me to thing not..

a thunder-stricken midwinter night.

So..now I'm going with a seasonal metaphoric poem :) NO...going back to my original thought....

bushfires can cause so much damage in a short space of time and....I think (maybe not a bushfire) but a fire anyway is a metaphor for love.

I don't think this is about a relationship...don't know why I have these thoughts....you are angry at someone who has let you down for sure but....just I get the feeling it was someone who has been in you life from day dot....probably wrong but....got me thinking as you poetry usually does!

Wonderful poem!

"Well done on lingering in the heat, the metaphor was quite consistent and effective, not too abstract, easily grasped. You've got a nice balance of abstract vs concrete imagery. There's a subtle sense of destructiveness and seductiveness that makes this piece even more powerful along with its clean-cut wording."

[Weekly Contest 18-02-2013]

[Weekly Contest Comment: 2/11/13]

I really like the relationship that is introduced just by this opening line...this person has been your teacher, showing you the uncontrollable power this element as. I love the desperation you seem to write in, like this was your cursed destiny all along. Amazing metaphor...it was darkly beautiful and gave me shivers while reading this "for I, too, am beginning to bow down to my very own tormentor". That language of helplessness is striking. Good write!