Split Personality

One of my many poems in my journal. Please tell me if its any good. I hope you enjoy it. :)



A friend I have like no other
He loves and protects like my mother
Protecting me from myself
Hiding my thoughts of death

I really need some help
But, he tells me not to tell
"Just be yourself!" he says
Being myself doesn't work

Try to be happy, get called gay
Try to be normal, never works anyway
Life is hard to live like this
I just want to be free

I'm putting it all on the table
You don't know me enough to label
Me sick or even disturbed
You know what, you've got a lot of nerve

I'm just two different guys
Trying to live one life
Is this wise?
I have to decide

Run away from him, or stay and fight
He use to be my friend
Until I locked him in
with all my pain and misery

Just so wild and free
He isn't so mean
misunderstood is the thing
He'll never be the same

I think I'm going insane
We all aren't the same
Some people have insanities
Well, I have a split personality

Hi Mage!

The subject you have is interesting and you could get so much more out of it if you went beyond your ordinary, day-to-day observations! What I feel is that an idea like this needs proper appearances to blossom. Well, I guess everything does, but I felt it even more with this one. Also, this has been written about before, so show us something completely new! After all, it's your other personality we're talking about, and since no one can understand anyone else's first personalities either, just think about all the possibilities you have! You could go all Jekyll&Hyde with this, don't hold yourself back and make it lamer than it is. You must have it in you!

Another thing: you have rhymes in some places, and in some places not. I've never liked that kind of stuff – for me it's either or. When you have it here and there, it's confusing and muddled, and the rhymes in those places where they exist, don't come forward. So, when you might have wanted to put rhymes only to a few places to emphasize them, you kind of do the exact opposite. I have to say that I liked the table-label rhyme, but please rhyme every stanza if you want to rhyme, not just a few.

I would, however, suggest something. To see where you can get with this, you could try first writing this in free verse. That way you won't have the rhyming responsibility in your way, because that, if something, is really annoying. Expand your ideas, think of new imagery, go extreme. Then, if you still feel like rhyming, do that. But it could also be that you're happy with the free verse version, and then of course you don't need to throw the rhyming there anymore.

One more thing. A split personality. A unique thing (well, no, but you get what I mean). An unbelievably-hard-to-grasp thing. A marvellous thing in all its oddness. Now. When you're writing about a thing like this, don't use dull words. Don't use words that everyone's seen a million times, don't use words that are usually used to describe something totally ordinary.

I'm not going to go into nit-picks this time, because I feel like they're all just going to reflect everything I've already said, plus I'm sure that someone will take care of the little details. *is not lazy or anything...*

Well, I hope this helps, and I'll gladly look at an edited version!


Demeter
x

Demeters! (double demmi) How dare you respond before me? Hehe

Mage_Banks wrote:
A friend I have like no other
He loves and protects like my motherI think "he loves and protects me like a mother" would go better here, but, whatever!
Protecting me from myself
Hiding my thoughts of death

I really need some help
But, he tells me not to tell
"Just be yourself!" he says
Being myself doesn't work

Try to be happy, get called gay
Try to be normal, never works anyway
Life is hard to live like this
I just want to be free

I'm putting it all on the table
You don't know me enough to label I agree with demeters. The rhymes are in really random places.
Me sick or even disturbed
You know what, you've got a lot of nerve

I'm just two different guys
Trying to live one life
Is this wise?
I have to decide

Run away from him, or stay and fight
He use to be my friend
Until I locked him in
with all my pain and misery

Just so wild and free
He isn't so mean
misunderstood is the thingMy favorite line.
He'll never be the same

I think I'm going insane
We all aren't the same
Some people have insanities
Well, I have a split personalityLove the ending, ol' chap!

Mage, you are an amazing poet. It makes me sad because I understand what you are talking about.
I agree with dems that the rhyming is weird. They are piled in places that I didn't expect.
But, talking about the overall detail and description, I loved it. It's something I can relate to. You didn't confuse me at all, which is easy to do with me! I understood each and every line. Bravo.
~Classy

What is needed desperately here is creativity.Time and again we here of people cribbing that the cant be themselves and they must put up a facade to be accepted.

And its not a spilt personality mentioned here.Its just one person behaving and acting differently.In a split personality one personality does not even know the other.

The last stanza was good as you blended the poem into chaos and insanity,but the ones before were just plain cribbing.If the speaker had the attitude of "Screw you people,I'll be what I want to be" it would have made things interesting. That said,its still just a personal opinion.

All the best.

Try to be normal, never works anyway
^^ Great line.
And great ending.

Hey Mage!

Now, what I think this poem really needs is some deeper meaning behind it. That isn't to say that what you're writing about isn't deep, but I do think that you could, in a way, delve deeper into the feeling behind the poem. Explore more emotions, more feeling. Really get into the speaker's head and make the reader truly empathise with what they are feeling. You want people to go on the same emotional ride as your speaker, but you'll never achieve that if you stick to the surface rather than delve.

Hope this helps!

~Amy

As said above. These lines are hollow, no substance. A lot of it has to do with your threadbare wording and metaphors/similes. You use the kind of words that are used all the time in everyday conversations.

Do you remember half of the conversations you had today? Things like saying "Hi! How are you? What's up with those guys?" aren't remembered.

Maybe you would have more of a consistent feeling behind these words if you strengthened your wording, because right now they lack any backbone.

Kamas