Dear Jill,
How do you get over someone who left you when you really, really think he was the most perfectly suited person to you that you'll find?
Also, here is a line of poetry I’d like you to edit.
"Another wonder of the world, smaller than you imagined. Larger, too – like women can be large and small in anger."
Thank you,
Vivica Caliente De L’Amour
(not the poet’s real name)
Dear Vivica,
There is no such thing as getting “over.” There’s getting along. There’s getting down on it (Kool & the Gang are still together, did you know that?). And there is, of course, getting off. But over? No, my sister. If this break up were, say, a hedge maze, then your fear that this boy might have been the most and only perfect match for you would be the axe-wielding Jack Nicholson bearing down, down, down on the Shelley Duval of your self-confidence. What you need to do is get THROUGH the maze, Miss Mousie. You must be a chin-up trooper and, like Valerie Bertinelli, take it one day at a time. Go out. With friends and on dates, both. And do your work. Write your poems. A stereotype it may be, but it’s this kind of shit that poetry’s all about. And trust me: He wasn’t the man for you.
Besides, the only perfectly-suited man I know is Mr. Cave, and here is a picture of him in one of those dapper suits.
As for your lines:
“Wonder of the world” I worry is too cliché, even with the way you undercut that cliché by extending the metaphor. Also, I’m concerned about the large women. Unless you want your reader to think of the ladies as fat and then have that assumption repealed at the end of the line, “in anger” comes too late in the clause. Is there something else that this wonder can be besides large or small? Can the women be wonderful and terrible in anger and the initial “wonder” be revised to something else? In any case, I like very much this metaphor, however you decide to play it out.
Feeling your pain and digging your words,
Jill
