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agentsab's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
3.5
Favorite Quotes:
“I’ve never needed an excuse
“I’ve never needed an excuse
to sacrifice myself for love.
I’m a martyr for everything soft.
I confess to you: I’d bleed for anything
if it held me the right way.” 11
“Do you ever get the impression
that you’re on the wrong side
of your own life?
I just mean that sometimes it feels like
a constant battle between wanting it
to feel the same, and knowing that it
shouldn’t.
Okay, so I wrote myself out of the dark
but I can feel it creeping back in.
Is it too late to outrun my fate?” 12
“That’s a lot of love, I want to
say, a lot of snow, but then I’d have to admit I’m not
listening as well as I should because I’m assuming
that there’s endless time to say everything I need to say.” 15
“At 19 I walk out of the room that
becomes our final private memory and think what if
this is the last time and promptly ignore it.” 16
“I gorged on happiness hours before its expiration date. Potential stretched before me like a dinner table.
Life is magnificent just before it tries to kill you.” 22
“I am COMMA granting you immortality on a page when the story is as simple as “you left” 23
“i feel like a papercut that never stops bleeding,” 28
“Which grief can I live with today? I’ve barely been awake five minutes when the question arrives, tail tucked between its legs, waiting for an answer.
This is what I’ve learned
after months of meandering between melancholies:
it’s easier to lick the wounds of a battered heart than it is to raise someone from the dead.” 29
“in a language that doesn’t have the word ‘love’ I say,
“the receipt from the film we watched on our first date is still tacked on my bulletin board.”
I say, “I bought four red sweaters after you told me your favorite” 30
“It’s been over a year and I still look for him
in everything. A reflex I can’t stop responding to.
I cling with blistered hands and bitter heart to any story, any fiction, any song remotely like ours, as if it’ll give our conclusion meaning.
Or, at the very least, a name I can call out
when I’m fading away.” 34
“The truth is not the truth until you say it
to the first thing you survived.
Joy is difficult to obtain when you most require it.
If my depression answers to anything it isn’t my reflection.
You can lose things while holding onto them.
The symphony of childhood sounds best
when played in reverse.
Forgiveness is not enough if” 50
“i haven’t done this in a while
so please forgive anything that may fall
out of my mouth when i’m touching you.
the firework show making an open field of my chest .
your face, the spark.” 57
“The years I’ve lost to my mind
haunt me like a bad memory.
I’m stuck inside the throat
of forgetfulness.
(I’m still naming my mistakes
after cities I’ve cried in.)
When you take a blade
to your past, where do you go
to bury the hatchet?
How do you forgive your name
for being your name?” 64
“the sadness feels like a weighted sweater
pushing me further and further into myself.
not every day.
but enough of them.” 68
“YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO BURY
THE PERSON YOU WERE WHEN YOU
LOVED THEM” 77
“At the age of 12 cruelty does not know its own voice.” 79
“all love is—
—constantly dreading the next collective moment of
departure, fearing anything that could complicate
returning.” 84
“Everything I have ever created is a love letter to my identity.” 89
“if i’ve learned anything about shame it’s that when you pass it down to your children they have no choice but to carry ittend to a deep
undeniable sadnessthey are unable
to name” 92
“The myths I told myself to keep you alive are slowly becoming obsolete without anyone to repeat them.
Time is erasing you without so much as an echo to commemorate it.” 94
“it’s easier to think of my life as one big epic poem rather than a series of events that thrust me into creativity as a means of survival. ” 95
“I grip the rage, the absence, tightly in my fists.” 121
“I AM BARELY HOLDING IT TOGETHER
and that gives me joy.
it implies that, at one point, I had it all together. it was there, a full life for the ripening.” 132
“I could write my hands to ruin and still never capture the timbre of your laughter after midnight” 158
“I could dedicate every poem I ever write to you and it wouldn’t be enough.
It just wouldn’t be enough to express the joy I’ve experienced through being loved well by you.” 159
softgalaxy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
I think this is a poetry collection I’ll have to read again and much more slowly. There is so much imagery and metaphors to unpack, they stay with you long after reading.
Caitlin Conlon is one of my favourite poets, I enjoyed her work Cavity, but The Surrender Theory shows her growth as a writer.
Grief is tough terrain to navigate, but Conlon climbs through it without any expectation of a destination or completion of a journey. Grief just is
Caitlin Conlon is one of my favourite poets, I enjoyed her work Cavity, but The Surrender Theory shows her growth as a writer.
Grief is tough terrain to navigate, but Conlon climbs through it without any expectation of a destination or completion of a journey. Grief just is
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail
lynini's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
it’s just a beautiful compilation of some of the most heartfelt and moving poetry i’ve ever read. i would recommend this to anyone who enjoys poetry and even those who don’t. i loved this book, it’s poetry will stay with me forever.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Minor: Death
fientasie's review against another edition
4.0
one of my friends pinned a poem on her pinterest board about me, so obviously i immediately bought the book.
some poems hit harder than others, but i thought this was a beautiful collection of feelings! i liked the writing style of the majority of the poems and some references to modern media. i also liked that it was not readable in one sitting (which is how i usually read poetry) and i had to take some time to read and feel it all.
i'll add my favourite lines here when i have the book with me
some poems hit harder than others, but i thought this was a beautiful collection of feelings! i liked the writing style of the majority of the poems and some references to modern media. i also liked that it was not readable in one sitting (which is how i usually read poetry) and i had to take some time to read and feel it all.
i'll add my favourite lines here when i have the book with me
lilawsahar's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Read them out loud. It sounds better. I already want to re-read it. I loved each poem and saw so many emotions in myself when she talked about her own experiences.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
mmejiaaar's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
This is a collection of poetry about loss, heartbreak, mental health, grief, and love that, though gorgeous, at times feels a bit repetitive and stranded. There are many beautiful poems, such as "the surrender theory", "coded signals", "linguistics", or "pareidolia", among others but they are not very consistent. Since many of the themes of the poems and their inspiration seem to be from the past (when the author was 19), i would have loved for it to have a chronological order or a clear destination, but many of the latter poems felt like a step-back and because of that i could not enjoy them as much. There were many lines that changed my brain chemistry because of how tender and filled with love and yearning they were, but some others were overwhelmingly cliché. I think this is a book I would recommend to people that are just getting started in to poetry and want something not so heavy, but still reflective and stunning.