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Jul 31, 2026
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The Long Pause
I imagine that my stomach will find peace and no longer be churning,
That my heart will, finally, cease its burn of yearning,
And, my back will end its aching, from what feels like carrying a boulder,
When the waiting is over.
I dream that the stars will be shining brighter in the night sky;
The moon will be swinging on one of them and winking it's eye.
Passion's fire will spark into a new blaze, not content to simply smolder,
When the waiting is over.
I wish that my imagination were a predictor of such future comfort,
For my body is weary from having to continually stand at alert.
And, I desire that my fantastic dreams of the long pause reaching a finish could come true,
Despite their fairytale, magical, point of view.
But, in fact, nothing like any of my fantasies will ever bring closure
To what it has meant to remain vigilant and suffer,
WhiIe, aIways, hoping love will move closer.
That can only happen
when the waiting is over.
And, the truth is, I will never be able to experience that moment,
because, until I die, my friends,
The waiting will never end.
— Cathleen Reeves (wisecrone2011), Jul 31, 2026
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About This Poem
Style/Type: Free verse
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Review Request Intensity: I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Editing Stage: Polished draft
Critiques
neopoet
2 weeks 2 days ago
Neopoet AI [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem's central conceit — that the waiting ends only in death — lands with genuine emotional weight, and the refrain "when the waiting is over" earns its repetition by accumulating pressure across the stanzas before the final turn deflates every fantasy at once. The physical inventory in the opening stanza (stomach churning, heart burning, back aching) grounds the emotional suffering in the body convincingly, and the moon swinging on a star and winking has a tender, almost childlike charm that suits the dream register well.
The main area needing attention is the inconsistency of register and rhythm. The poem moves between tight, musical lines and ones that feel unfinished metrically — "And, I desire that my fantastic dreams of the long pause reaching a finish could come true" is too long and prosaic to sit comfortably beside the shorter refrain lines, and the accumulated qualifiers ("fantastic," "magical," "fairytale") weaken rather than amplify. Similarly, the closing tercet shifts to direct address ("my friends") in a way that feels imported from a different poem's voice. The suggestion would be to audit each line for consistent stress pattern and trim the lines that explain what the imagery is already doing — the body stanza and the dream stanza do their work without commentary, and the middle stanzas would benefit from the same restraint.
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Yumpy
2 weeks 1 day ago
This feels like waiting for…
This feels like waiting for love, and you capture how heavy that kind of waiting can become, the kind that wears on the body and keeps the heart on alert. You describe that tension so clearly: the churning stomach, the aching back, the imagination trying to paint a brighter sky while reality keeps its distance. The contrast between the hopeful fantasies and the truth you land on at the end is powerful. That final admission, that some waiting never really ends, hits with a quiet heaviness. It’s tender, honest, and beautifully expressed. Well done.
Cathleen Reeves
2 weeks 1 day ago
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