I point this out to make it clear that I don't want to serve to enforce my vision of how you should tell your story onto you,

oh, don't worry about that at all! the critique of this thing not having the highest stakes is definitely valid — I wanted this poem to have narrators that were hella optimistic, to the point of irrationality, because of how much they were sure in their hearts that they were gonna get through everything together: that it's

[…] the tragic
Is allayed and the only destiny made known: we are now
(130) At the edge of the fucking world, together with a future in our eyes.

it was a balancing act to get the mix of danger and stupid, in the end perfect optimism down, and I can imagine it won't hit for a lotta people. that being said, I do think in retrospect I could'a afforded to spend more time on at least discussing how painful it would have been for my half to have to use his fucked up leg — I know I envisioned it in my head, but since the whole thing was written over about 3 days, I imagine it slipped out of my mind when it came time to actually write.

also, I find it kinda touching that despite this poem being far and away the best poetry i've ever written, the thing that stands out to you the most is the jotted-down true story of how my family got started in the US. there's something poignant there about fiction and reality, I think.

glad you liked this thing overall though, radian! like I told you, I hadn't the faintest idea if it really was any good, now I feel confident that I did do good work with the characterizing and I know to take the poetry a bit less improvisationally now. thx for the review!!

Now, that out of the way, I, overall, found this to be an enjoyable and touching read. I particularly liked the 'small' emotional moments between the characters; the little things they do in between their big backrooms adventures to flirt and show affection and whatnot. Really makes their love sink in and humanizes them as they're weathering the storm of the Backrooms. The poetry here is also great; while I won't analyze that aspect much due to my own lack of experience with poetry, I liked how varied it was — it prevented it from ever becoming repetitive. Another thing I like here that's been missing from a lot of other Backrooms content I've read is that this article really humanizes the people and organizations and of the backrooms. While, obviously, due to its focus on the two main characters, it doesn't flesh them out all that much, they do very much feel more like actual places with actual people.

The author's note in the comments I also found very moving. That said, I also thought it was the strongest part of the work, and, at least in my own subjective opinion, I don't think the article itself wholly lived up to it. I saw the connection between it and your IRL situation after-the-fact, but it didn't truly sink in emotionally to me that the main thesis of this story is that love can win, even when the situation seems dire and hopeless and like you might never see your partner ever again.

I think part of this is because, throughout its length, we don't really get the sense that the relationship between the main characters is being challenged by the situations they're put in. They are almost always ride-or-die for each other, to the point where it practically seems like a given, which, paradoxically, makes it less noticeable. When they do get in horrible situations, those situations are quickly resolved, and this undercuts the stakes the article would otherwise have. The strongest part of the article in this regard is probably the flesh creature in Level 3, where one of the characters is nearly killed and the other has to save them, and they wonder for a brief moment if they truly deserve to have been saved. However, even this is undercut by the lack of lasting consequences — unless I missed it, I don't think the physical disability of the character that was nearly killed ever really became a plot point after that incident.

Initially, I had framed this critique as one of the pacing being too fast, but, really, I think this lack of stakes is the underlying cause behind the apparent pacing issue — situations are introduced and then resolved so quickly, and with so few lasting consequences, that they seem less impactful than they are meant to be.

Now, all of this said, I'd like to be very clear: My perspective is limited here. I might be a second-gen immigrant into the US, but neither of my parents ever went through the struggle of entering the US illegally; nor were they high school sweethearts that had to endure being separated for years. I point this out to make it clear that I don't want to serve to enforce my vision of how you should tell your story onto you, when it is clearly important to your identity and is based on your unique situation. I, conversely, am but one data point.

centurys lute

Wynths

At 18, my dad faced a crossroads. He could've continued to stay in El Salvador, and establish himself as a mechanic after foraging and saving enough money for his license — or, he could cross illegally into the United States, to ensure my mother would not leave him. She had left three years prior, they were 13 and 15 respectively, and they were madly in love even then. Their jewelry was trinkets and their gourmet meals chocolate bars, but that made the expression of their love no less brilliant. But they had spent three years apart, and my dad was afraid of being forgotten — rightfully so, my mom confessed to me in a Ross parking lot¹. Coupled with the potential of bringing his mechanics skills to the US (something that never panned out; he became a fantastic indie contractor instead), the choice was clear.

He chose to cross into the United States, hitching rides to Guatemala, then taking a train from it to a small town just north of the Rio Grande. He walked to Houston, rendezvoused with family who had already made the journey, then set off for Virginia with a backpack containing nothing but a hundred dollars, a couple sets of clothes, and a shitty lil' carpenter's tool belt that a cousin had graciously gifted him.

At Virginia, he was barred by my grandparents from meeting with my mother. It made no difference — they saw each other anyways at the small church they both (sincerely) went to, and they both made textual trysts in the dead of night. They went to the mall, and they ate Auntie Anne's pretzels together. Presumably, they went to hotels and concerts together — just as they do now — and loved each other there.

I say all this to contextualize why I wrote this piece. You could say this is dumb escapism, dumb luck, dumb passions. Personally, as someone who hasn't even hit 20, I understand the cliches about young people and their obsession with infatuation. But I have seen firsthand the evidence that high school couples' loves are possible, that they can last longer than 3 months — my parents married at 18 and 21, and have been married for over 20 years — and I wanted to write something for Romcon that reflected that, that didn't just use the premise of "Romance" to iterate on horror yet again.

I'm sorry if it's too indulgent or too sappy. I just wanted to write something I wanted to write.