A real-time transcription of a second read-through experience. DISCLAIMER: These are only one man's opinions filtered through a highly subjective personal taste.

The first stanza is good, so good in fact I wished the poem had taken more from it. The imagery is fresh, yet it's the order I keep coming back too. I see the smoke first, that hypnotic ghostly ribbon. The line asks what burns? And then, we rewind to the crackle of a cherry -- clashing logistically, but making a strange sort of sense thematically. A cherry, vibrantly red, sexual, and molecular which brings me to combusting matter, a wider view -- connections of chains reactions -- networks in destruction!

Hilarity ensued and we zoom all the way out, at once building a grand new concept of hilarity and trivializing the preceding chemical show. Bravo!

I'm not the biggest fan of 'It's like the joy you'd exude.' I like bringing in a subject the speaker is addressing, creating a scene. I like the nostalgic tone being struck here. I like coloring joy with hilarity. But 'It's like' takes the wind out of it, creating more distance than necessary between hilarity and 'the joy you'd exude' which, as a phrase, is limp, familiar -- joy is usually exuded. I would point to the verb choice here as the deflator.

'The carelessness I shared with this' I like -- building upon hilarity imbued joy, it strikes the chord of a particular kind of happiness. 'I shared with this' -- the with this is a nice twist, as if you are sharing the carelessness with the joy, or the scene, and thus animating it further. 'is something I'll miss..." ehh this nostalgia works better loaded in the subtext. The rhyme is cheesy.

Third stanza, I feel we're getting a bit too abstract. 'The augmentation/ of my imagination' -- conceptually it's interesting. I'm wondering what augments imagination. Objects? Maybe that joy of you? 'The barriers ceased' -- limits disappeared themselves, effortlessly on behalf of the speaker. Such is the power of the imagination. But the thread between these lines kind of dangles ambiguously compared to the startling physicality of the first stanza, and by extension, the second. By the third, we're in a conceptual cloud threatening to dissipate.

Which I suppose then it's appropriate enough to begin the fourth with 'Fledgling ideas' The lines following aren't particularly taut to me. The stance the speaker takes towards the sharing of fledgling ideas is neutral, maybe a bit bored in comparison to stanza 2. Not sure where the poem is going at this point, and neither does the speaker: '...'

Stanza five continues to be vague and a bit rambly. The language has lost it's power here.

Stanza six comes roaring back after faltering with the first three lines -- I feel your interest in rhyme is hurting you here -- but good turns with 'Television's wonder/with choices beyond the/sane person's need.

Stanza seven and eight are mired in cliche. At this point the poem has lost everything from the beginning two stanzas. I'm not particularly sure of the scene -- who the speaker is talking to or what about...

Stanza nine references panic attacks, flipping from the hilarity and carelessness from stanza two. I'm not sure how we got here, but I'm guessing the questions from the previous stanzas (although they don't seem to evoke panic attacks.) Anyways, 'Haunt me, the wrong state of mind/ A time of unwell' reads at once familiar and awkward, tensionless. Which come to think of it could be appropriate given the right framing.

Stanza ten reminds me how much I dislike the word 'yearn'. We live in the 21st century, ain't nobody yearning shit. You just wanted to rhyme with return. Anyways, I'm sensing a drug reference here -- but at this point seems a bit out of the blue...

The sentiment of the last stanza is at once cliched and puzzling. Did this poem become about dying from smoking something? Is that what the first couple of a stanzas were about? Ohhh kkkkkkkkkk. Right. Cherry. I get it.

Lol! Let me rip a bit of this one hit.

Alright, I'm back. I tend not to get too much excited about flow, though it does read nice out loud in the way most spoken word poems usually do. It is nice that limericks are involved.

By now, I'm sure you can tell that I like evocation through the subtleties brought forth by language worked together in novel ways. From this perspective, I feel like this poem does a lot of abstract telling. Like 'These panic attacks/haunt me,the wrong state of mine/ a time of unwell'.

Also, what's interesting to me is how knowing 'cherry' refers to a bowl that is cherry and 'combusting matter' is burning drugs -- knowing this resolves, and destroys, the resonance. What I mean is, my mind exploded with the suggestions of the first stanza which felt very compelling to me, and echoed because the first stanza doesn't resolve itself -- until the last part of the poem. Now I know exactly what you are referring to and the magic is over for me.

Again, this is only an expression of my perspective and my taste and my interests. Hopefully it inspires you, but if not, no worries! Keep writing! I'm following you. (I'm also new to hubski.)