"Cause I'm lonely and I'm blue.
I need you and your love too.
C'mon and rescue me."-Fontella Bass
How do I escape? Am I mourning?
Is it still love?
How do I know when the end was a fluke?
I want things to be like they.... were?
Like they were when?
When the kisses were still electric?
When I still smiled at the thought of you?
When money was no object or issue?
When things were controllable
And tangible
And nothing was your fault?
When?
I can't remember.
Refresh my memory.
Rescue me.
Addressing a poem to "you" can put the reader in the somewhat uncomfortable position of voyeur, eavesdropping on an apparently private communication. For the poem to transcend the you and the I and be accessible and of interest to a wider audience, it needs to paradoxically become more specific. You achieve the universal through the specific. We need to know something about the speaker, the person she's addressing, and their situation that will make this particular love story come alive. Try writing this about him/her rather than addressed to "you." The electric kisses evoke Jean Toomer's "Her Lips Are Copper Wire;" maybe go back and reread that to see if there's anything else there that makes a spark.
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