Wow! Saffie this is really powerful. This imagery is fantastic and metaphor is great too boot. I loved the simple wording you started out with. You made this scene as cold as you could because I believe the tone is building up to something dark and sad. The wording is great as well because you used words to hold the tone well. Any use of the stars to me brings a peace inside a heart but here you kept with the tone well. I think towards the end you can feel the character getting more sad almost hoping not to live life alone anymore. Overall the message is strong and you did a great job explaining loneliness very well. The title is great and works well with the poem nominated.

You always use such great alliteration in your titles, it always captures my eye when I see it and can't wait to read further. The title alone indicates sadness, a widow mourning for her other half.

You set the scene nicely, it radiates with that somber quality of the widow grieving for her love on that chilly evening. But yet, a whisper, maybe his last words he spoke to her is the only thing that is keeping her somewhat strong, keeping her focusing on the love they shared instead of the loss.

I love how you added the xylophone! I haven't seen it used often in poetry so that was definitely refreshing to read. Great imagery in this stanza with the stars twinkling as the the song plays in the sky. I can definitely see each star twinkling as it is being played! Love that.

You continue to try to be strong, but the idea of your world without him is unbearable.

That ending is heart-wrenching! You slowly walking up upon his grave, trying to hold back the tears but yet you cannot a second longer... and as they fall down, you silently pray that one day, your tears will bring him back to you.

Beautiful, Saffie. <3

Enjoyed reading. Simple, yet very deep.
When we are lonely, the heart speaks for itself. Everything seems so grey. Have to take it on day at the time and in time pain will become manageable. However, it is not forgotten

Blown away. I read this twice. One can not embrace the story or the beauty in this simply reading it once. Oh my how my heart hurts reading this as I think of my dad ad and how I have not been to his grave yet, but what you have pieced together here so incredibly beautiful to me.

I try my best to hold myself together
as the icy air pierces my skin
with the unbearable reality of
my stolen dreams.

^^ that is gut wrenching!! I love that last line.

This is so well put together Saffie, from the coldness and darkness we feel during a loss, to the concrete bed, I just admire the way you can pen a death here. I wish I could do that.

So well done.

The ending is terrific, I would change "concrete" though -- I'm betting this is the beloved's tombstone. But I'm not so sure it is metaphorically a "bed". The bed would be the wooden casket, and the tombstone would be a ceiling, or the home. You can ignore or correct me if I'm wrong.

praying for the tears to wake up the living beloved is empathetically heartfelt. I'd end it with, "even for just tonight", because the tone of the poem isn't just sadness, it's more of longing. The type that doesn't yearn for a forever, but for just a moment. If you get what I mean.

Like the idea here, but I feel like this poem is flooded with cliché adjectives... the grieving heart... the aching loneliness... weeping memories... stolen dreams... they are over used and can actually be interchangeable. In that sense they become weak and almost baseless. I could go and say "aching memories" and "weeping heart", "grieving loneliness"... It's too sad without showing, but telling.

abstract emotions can still be shown without the use of too many adjectives because describing emotions (intangible) with something intangible like your adjectives fail to create a picture. Just an advice, like I can say... tonight my heart is throbbing out of my chest... or heart skipping from it's own beat. But skipping may not be the perfect word, it shows childlike actions. To skip. How about leaping... my heart is leaping out of it's own beat, out of it's own orbit which solar system of your world. Or my heartbeat is leaping out, towards the oblivion of your new home. keyword is to "Show". Show actions. I get what you're trying to convey. They are good, but to be great needs more work.

You mentioned 'cold wind' and I liked that you became consistent and by saying "icy air" in the next stanza. But shimmering stars that are twinkling could be redundant as well, shimmering stars is a giveaway that they are twinkling already.

Still I liked what is conveyed and to be honest, this is good poetry. Keep up though, you have good potential :)