new poem, first draft

Insect Overlord

Force of habit turns my face towards your house
Each and every time I pass
Along this stretch of road.
From here I can surmise that you're not home,
On this occasion,
But other days I see
An open doorway and
Remember silly childhood games
And even later summer days
Of chatting till the stars came out
And we went in-doors,
Into separate homes, of course.

Our last real conversation
Ended four summers ago,
But still we always smile
Or say hello or wave from cars,
Then look away again
And journey on to pastures new.
I shyly bow my head
And think of how I used to be,
Wonder if there was ever a moment
When you felt the same as me...

Then habit's hold relinquishes.
I smile at the thought of someone new.
I've grown out of those dream-like wishes,
Those naive visions of me and you.

pickarooney

Pretty good.

I would change "And journey on to pastures new." to something less chichéd and less final.
"Relinquish" is a transitive verb. "Habit" can relinquish a hold, but "habit's hold" cannot relinquish, especially with a null object.
The following line has one syllable to many; it stutters on "the thought".
Drop the comma at the end of line four. It's not grammatically necessary and hinders the fluidity of the run-on into line five.
The hyphen in "in-doors" is, I think, superfluous.
Maybe consider changing the "and" to "when" or otherwise the tense conflict of "chatting/went". For that matter, maybe stick "our" before "separate homes".

All very minor, even pedantic, quibbles. Otherwise it's a sight better than any of your previous poems I've read.

Insect Overlord

pickarooney wrote: »

All very minor, even pedantic, quibbles. Otherwise it's a sight better than any of your previous poems I've read.

Thank you for the feedback, pickarooney, and especially for the back-handed compliment

I'll hopefully get around to revising and redrafting this soon. Your advice will certainly not be ignored.