Hello,

I loved reading this. I like enjoyed the pace and length and your use of language construction. I also like the way you have sectioned the poem to allow this reader to process each stanza and understand it in its own right.

The notion of ones love being misplaced is a great one. It is rich with feeling and deep in meaning.

After a question, 'I'm not loving in the right way, am I?' you give imagery to the misplaced notion with similes. I liked this:

...Like a summer library book smitten by the rainfall yet a bit overdue. Like a family picture missing from the frame. Like a sparrow without her song. Like a hello with only goodbyes.
^
Just a personal thought here: Maybe 4 similes are too many. What if it read something like this?

...Like a summer library book smitten by the rainfall yet a bit overdue. Like a family picture missing from the silver frame on the bedside. Like muted 'hellos' replaced with wistful, 'goodbyes.'

I will read the rest...

See, that's it. My love?
^
A question answered in ones own mind, spoken to the air, hoping that it is heard, read later perhaps?

It can't be given. Not in the form I want to give it in. Not to the person I've dreamed about and shared hours with. He who has seen me at the gate to Hell. When my scalp was angry-red and my hands no longer praising the heavens.
^
Wonderful imagery, the juxtaposed position of praising hands in the air to angrily using them to scrape a scalp so 'angry-red'

My love? It's starting to rot. I never wanted that. I gave you my heart in its truest self, its first bloom, the nectarines sweet and petals soft
^
Imagery again is super. Pure love, new love - fragile love!
...and you returned it. You weren't the one to care for it. To garden it.
^
Realization that love was misplaced. I like the simile here, 'To garden it' clear and to the point and lends to the previous similes, nectarine and petal.

I'm emptied out now. I've let my words stand at the tall wooden podium
^
This reference to the lectern is powerful and helps bring this poem to read like a sermon, perhaps?

... and read the breaths that I've often been suffocated by. I let my soul ink speak its tribulations, its great discoveries, its sorrow I eventually learned from.

What more is there? What's after this? A process of waiting? Waiting for another season? Packing my bags and taking my sailor's coat to a new land?
^
Closing thoughts with a lone 'questions and answer session'. The use of the repeated word, 'waiting' flows nicely and adds a necessary beat that leads into the need to move on. This, again, executed simply, yet effectively.

-
^
Lovely use of space, a time to reflect on the words and their meaning, before leaving the reader with a final pause for thought.

What's my life supposed to taste like without love?
^
A rhetorical question that leaves a powerful profound resonance.

I absolutely loved this poem and will add this to my favorites.

Michael

Oh my! Thats all I can say...

MaryAnne,

This is smashing read my dear, it charmed me from start to finish. Your similes and imagery made me detach from reality to a very heavenly poetic atmosphere.
~Clapping

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Did you just steal my heart for a day and pen this?

Like a summer library book smitten by the rainfall yet a bit overdue.

^ one word, phenomenal

I gave you my heart in its truest self, its first bloom, the nectarines sweet and petals soft and you returned it. You weren't the one to care for it. To garden it.

^ oh wow, that to me was so elegant and sincere and just full of innocence....though sadness at the ending of this verse, I love pouring out you did here with your words using the most delicate analogy, as "delicate" is what love usually is.

I've let my words stand at the tall wooden podium and read the breaths that I've often been suffocated by.

^^ that personification though!! I loved this visual of words at a podium!

Hey, this could be a creative write or not, but if you're feeling empty, you know Who can fill you and where to find Him. God is love. And I will say , yes, if you're feeling empty or confused on where to go from here, that's exactly what this is ..yet another season. And spa season of waiting has to be the hardest. If you only knew what I am going through right now. Well maybe you do from Facebook lol, just saying I'm in the same boat and this writing was beautiful, shut up Chelsey and end this comment lol

Love you