Letter to Myself

Letter to Myself

You do not know, you cannot know
what I am, friend or foe.
For seventeen years, I’ve been by your side
always coming along for the ride
that is your life. I hide so

you don’t know what I am and what I think
as you desperately try to blink
away the tears that you claim are not there.
But I have seen your soul when it is bare,
when you have shed away your walls and sink

into the dark abyss of your mind.
I have seen what lies behind
the curtain of your bleeding heart
as we watch our world crumble and fall apart.
I watch you try to find

the inner strength to keep going on
and before I know it, you have gone
to run away to a place where you know
your ghosts will not catch you; you go
and run to replace emotional pain with a physical one.

For seventeen years, I have told
you how to suck it up and be bold
enough to say what you feel
and what you think, before you kneel
on the ground, alone, with nothing but the wintry cold.

I always say that you look fine
every time you see yourself and whine
that you don’t look good enough.
And every time that things got tough,
I’ve helped you cross that finish line

that always seems so far away.
But honestly, I have to say
that sometimes I think you’re weak,
and still I dare not speak
for fear that anything I might say

will hurt you. Your pain
is my pain, and if I tell you again
that you are not strong, well, that makes me weak too.
For this reason I will not tell you
if I am your foe… or your friend.

Hello!

So since you reviewed something of mine, I thought I'd take a look at this. So I liked the idea and I felt that it was really creative but there were two things that bothered me, well bothered is a strong word but you get the point.

When you're writing a poem, the way you format is just as good as what is written for it can frighten some people.

For example, you have:

You do not know, you cannot know
what I am, friend or foe.
For seventeen years, I’ve been by your side
always coming along for the ride
that is your life. I hide so

you don’t know what I am and what I think
as you desperately try to blink
away the tears that you claim are not there.
But I have seen your soul when it is bare,
when you have shed away your walls and sink

Either make it so that the stanzas end with a sentence or combine everything like this,

You do not know, you cannot know
what I am, friend or foe.
For seventeen years, I’ve been by your side
always coming along for the ride
that is your life. I hide so you don’t know
what I am and what I think
as you desperately try to blink
away the tears that you claim are not there.
But I have seen your soul when it is bare,
when you have shed away your walls and sink

You see?

Another thing is, you seem to be consistent with rhyming and though I always think that going free of rhyming schemes is best, I'll just except this the way it is.

will hurt you. Your pain
is my pain, and if I tell you again
that you are not strong, well, that makes me weak too.
For this reason I will not tell you
if I am your foe… or your friend.

I would say this:

will hurt you. Your pain
is my pain, and if I tell you again
that you are not strong, well, that makes me weak too.
For this reason I will not tell you
if I am your friend or foe.

That makes more sense.

All in all, great job!

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Cheers,

~Angel

Ok this is really good there are a few loose ends to tighten up but its really good. The rhyming scheme goes off once and a while but the is easily fixed. Really good job!

Kamas

I do not believe that your lines need to end neatly with a punctuation mark, It's one of the rules of peotry that you can do that. Personally, I am not typically a fan of rhyming poems becuase they can come off forced, but I didn't get too much of that here, and you kept the scheme AABBA consistantly. My only nit pick is that I would suggest you try to keep the lines the smae length for the most part, because it makes it easier for the peom to flow.