Writing in the Dark

This is poem is not about me, to prevent any "oh poor you" stuff. It's not about anyone I know either; it's just a "what if".

I wrote it without rhyme in iambic form. If you find any rough spots or think this is too "emo", please tell me.

Writing in the Dark

There’s whispers in the dark,
a terror which haunts and gnaws her heart.

Her delicate fingers turn the page.
Another day, unseen, is done.
She clutches the notebook,
the paper onto which she bleeds the poison of her soul--

the taunts and all the tears. It's everything she fears.

These leaflets are her sanctuary,
the place where her voice is heard in ink and painful honesty.
She lacks the courage to confront her peers,
so she just drowns herself in words.

But, sitting in her room at night, she knows they aren’t enough.
The letters, black and red and blue, can offer solace, but,
the gash within her spirit, writing cannot mend.

The writing that helps someone deal with their day to day troubles could be a good idea for a poem, but it would have to be a different take on the usual - this is the usual take on it, I'm afraid to say. Writing about writing is a tricky business, even when you're writing about someone else writing and not yourself.

the problem is I can't feel for this girl. Nothing in the writing makes me pity her, or makes me interested in her plight; since people aren't going to be interested in her simply because she's teenage and gets teased and is depressed and all that stuff that nobody cares about then the writing has to take up the slack if you're going to approach a subject like this. She's a character, your only character, and I have to be interested in her story.

I think the main problem is stuff like "the terror" and "she bleeds the poison of her soul--", which tell me automatically about this girl - she's whiny, emo, annoying - and so I shut her off immediately. Make her seem like a real person and not just a charicature. It might help if you wrote in her voice -- not the poems or whatever she's writing in the dead of night, please none of that, but let her speak. Get at the personality that's burried beneath the OH WOE. You need to cut away the OH WOE to get at the person; it might be quite a task but if you did so, you'd be left with a much more interesting and readable poem.

I don't do "constructive crit." I just wanna say I loved it. Altho you say it has nothing to do with your life...all construcive writing does so it dont wash with me. But still. I like it. Well doen you. Any more poems....let me know. thanks for the half smile x

I really like the idea...or plot, for lack of a better word. I think it has a lot of potential; but, as something euclidean said, this is the usual take on it. It's something almost anyone could write. You need to find a different way to write it; something unique, that no one else would think of.

Also, this might just be me, but this doesn't look quite right to me.

"terror which haunts and gnaws her heart."

Shouldn't it be "gnaws at"...? That might just be me though.

Good luck! =D
~Bells~

This poem was moving and mighty realistic.

I loved the idea and there's strenght in your style.I am unable to point out any mistakes other than the 'gnaws at her heart' and that in the first line, it should be "There are whispers in the dark, " as whispers is in prural.