To Die Young

Go to this Link for the song "If I die Young" By the Band Perry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8W6hYGZ0E
This song and I had a relative who died recently he took his own life, Gave me the inspiration to write this. Suggestions needed. Thanks everyone.

The young soul,
A young mind,
A corrupted tale of death.

A fast moving truck,
Smashing into a van,
Crushed beneath tons,
His young life is no more.

A tied rope,
Thrown over a beam,
Her strangled neck bruised and cold,
A written note,hand scripted and true.
The words tell the story of a child hurt and hated.
Her young life is by far outdated.

Living in a violent home,
A father who hits you,
A mother who cries,
The child of a family who would not care if he dies.
Sixteen years old he fights to the death,
Stabbed, beaten, bloody and bruised.
A young life he once was but not ever again,
May his parent's regret the pain they put him in.

To die young,
Life will be short,
Life will be cruel,
Second chances may not exist,
Let go.

Hi Snickers. This is a really touching topic and poem you've decided to share with us at YWS. I think you'll find no one has reviewed because no one wants to critique something written from the heart - especially when it was about a person in your family who had committed suicide. So I'm going to go out on a limb and tell you what I think about the poem itself, completely out of context. That means I'm going to forget that you said this poem was about a relative of yours dying, and just critique the flow etc.

Also, this is the song I immediately think of when I hear of suicide: These Kids, by Joel Turner. EDIT: I just listened to the song that inspired you. It's got a beautiful tune and nice lyrics. Thanks for sharing

The young soul,
A young mind,
A corrupted tale of death.

Your first stanza is kind of confusing. You start off saying "the young soul", then you change to "a young mind". I think you need to stick to the same way of labeling things, so it should be "A young soul/A young mind/A corrupted tale of death", or "The young soul/The young mind/The corrupted tale of death". With regards to the last line, I'm not quite sure if suicide can be classified as a corrupted tale of death.

A fast moving truck,
Smashing into a van,
Crushed beneath tons,
His young life is no more.

If you're following the theme of suicide, I don't think this stanza fits. Generally when people commit suicide, they want to escape their life and their problems. Often suicide notes apologise if there is any mess. Thus people committing suicide don't generally take others down with them.

A tied rope,
Thrown over a beam,
Her strangled neck bruised and cold,
A written note, *space*hand scripted and true.
The words tell the story of a child hurt and hated.
Her young life is by far outdated.

The words highlighted in purple: don't force rhymes. You don't have many rhymes before this one, so it's not necessary to start or keep a pattern. The last line doesn't seem to make sense regardless of how I try to read it. Also, I'm finding it hard to distinguish between the different people and their deaths in this poem. Is this stanza connected to the next?

Living in a violent home,
A father who hits you,
A mother who cries,
The child of a family who would not care if he dies.
Sixteen years old he fights to the death,
Stabbed, beaten, bloody and bruised.
A young life he once was but not ever again,
May his parent's regret the pain they put him in.

That sounds like an extreme situation. Don't overly dramaticise death for the sake of making it dramatic. This stanza would be better off without the green highlighted section. The purple highlighted section: read this out loud to yourself. He was a young life once?

To die young,
Life will be short,
Life will be cruel,
Second chances may not exist,
Let go.

And this last stanza seems as if you tacked it on in the end as if you didn't know how to finish this poem off. Read it to yourself, "To die young, life will be short, life will be cruel. Second chances may not exist, let go." I think by deleting some words and a little rearranging, you can make your message more clear:

Second chances may not exist;
Life is short,
Life is cruel.
So why die young,
And let go?

Anyway, I hope this helps somewhat. Please don't hesitate to reply to this thread with any comments or questions.

- Jai

Oh my god. This is so sad. If this actually happened to someone you know, I'm so sorry. To you and them. But I really liked the poem, beside the fact that I almost started crying in the middle of school. It's sad but good. Keep writing.

Thanks for the review!

First of all, "If I Die Young" is the only country song I like, and it's inspired me as well.

I loved this poem. I also wrote one about a young life being taken, and I wonder if yours was written from experience as mine was? Either way, this was touching. It actually kind of made my eyes tear up. >.<

Her strangled neck bruised and cold,

That line was my favorite. Call me dark, but it was beautiful. Your imagery in this is amazing; I love it.

The one thing I did not like:

The words tell the story of a child hurt and hated.
Her young life is by far outdated.

I didn't care for the rhyming of "hated" and "outdated". It sounded a little bit cliche to me.

I like this poem a lot, and I hope you write more. If you remember, I'd love for you to private message me when you post more.

Good luck!