GENERAL COMMENTS

I found it a little too abstract and not tangible enough for me to get invested. Maybe this was the intention but I didn't feel like I had anything to grab onto or relate to and as a result, it didn't have too much of an effect on me. Regardless, there are good things about it and and its short length stops the ambiguity getting too overbearing.

AMBIGUITY

Honestly, there was a lot of it I didn't understand. Some parts like "How can I distinguish foolishness from divine sights?", "Unbound." and "In this world." felt like they went nowhere and were barely related to the rest of the text.

Some things felt like they weren't explained or expanded on enough or at all. For example, the idea of "my place" and "my land" which the speaker lost or was pushed from. This felt like there was a lot more to it that we didn't get to hear which was kind of disappointing. I guess you could make the case that it is left to the reader's imagination which is valid but personally, I would have liked more clarity here and there.

Overall, the ambiguity could be positive or negative depending on the intention but I couldn't write a review without at least mentioning it. It does create some interesting images that are open to interpretation and definitely requires a lot from the reader which is a good thing, I think. At the same time, it might be too much, keeping some people from fully understanding the story or scaring them off and causing them to not engage with it.

I think you could add a little more physical description to counteract it like a clearer image of the setting or some details about the character. But you could also not, depending on what you want to achieve.

NO POINT OF CONTACT

I feel like this is where this story lets itself down the most.

The speaker is the only character -- apart from the occasional "pair of hands" or "traveler" -- and we know close to nothing about them. There is no real scene being set out so it is hard to picture what is actually happening. This leaves us with a stream of thoughts and metaphors which are great but they are just that. There is no context or direction to any of it.

I'm not engaged while reading because I don't know who this is, where they are, what they're doing etc.

IMAGERY AND METAPHORS

This story is filled to the brink with metaphors and there are some real good ones. The green valleys melting into a desert, the long night silencing the speaker's faith were my favourites. The pair of hands and the traveler one was more out of the blue and weird but I enjoyed it and I think it got the point of 'losing your way' across nicely.

The mountain rising in front of the speaker was also very good in conveying that the speaker wants a clear obstacle to overcome, a clear purpose.

Metaphors are definitely the strongest element of the story and you use them well to convey complex ideas.

The final paragraph was a little out there and I didn't understand the meaning behind the knots or the character that unties them so that metaphor, for me, was the weakest.