Wannabe Good Guy

Men.
Men men men.
What a filthy taste on your pristine lips.
Your eyes look so cold,
A warmth is hidden.
But I see it when you talk to your girlfriends.
That's the real you.

And me. When will I be one too?
When will I be just like you?
Like a noble diamond
Without this manhood to taint me;
Without this courseness to faint me
Like a rag you threw away.

Secret is, I might have loved you.
But I also hate you deep inside.
Maybe if you raped me
It would show a weakness,
SOMETHING behind where you hide.
Something true for me to love
Without the lies of silence.

So what now?
Should I pretend to be gay?
Show you I understand?
Tell you I don't understand?

So what then?
Should I love how you hate me?
Let you just bait me?
Because I'm weak like a woman.
But women are so strong.

Why do I have to play that game of revenge
With you and all of history?
It's not my fault. I wasn't there.
So stop living in the past
And embrace a future of equality
Where I am allowed to be a man
And be respected as more than just an animal.

This is pretty deep. Abstract, almost; not everything was very clear. But maybe you intended it to be that way. One thing I don't quite understand is, who exactly is this person? Obviously it's not a female, but what kind of boy or man? He doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of the other members of his gender, but why?

Maybe if you raped me
It would show a weakness,
SOMETHING behind where you hide.
Something true for me to love
Without the lies of silence.

Wait, why would they rape him?? O_O

So what now?
Should I pretend to be gay?
Show you I understand?
Tell you I don't understand?

I didn't quite get the pretending to be gay part.

Why do I have to play that game of revenge
With you and all of history?
It's not my fault. I wasn't there.
So stop living in the past
And embrace a future of equality
Where I am allowed to be a man
And be respected as more than just an animal.

I love this stanza, especially the last two lines. There is so much out there about women trying to be respected in "a man's world," but the fact that men suffer prejudice too is often overlooked. Great job overall and keep writing; I look forward to reading your future works.

~Warrior Princess

Hi there!
I loved how strong a abstract the poem is, it definitely caught my attention, I am not the typical one to review unless something catches my attention.

I do have a few suggestions:
1: the poem is a little confusing, are you gay? or bi? or straight? and this is written by a guy right?
2: Make the poem more clear and easy to understand
~unless you intended to make it a thought provoking poem, because if that is the case then its perfect in that area!

AdamBH wrote:
But I see it when you talk to your girlfriends.
That's the real you. I love how you captured the feeling you felt and how you show that you are observant and maybe in love

Secret is, I might have loved you.
But I also hate you deep inside.
Maybe if you raped me
It would show a weakness,
SOMETHING behind where you hide.
Something true for me to love
Without the lies of silence. I am not sure what this stanza means in a way? why do you feel like this?

So what now?
Should I pretend to be gay? I don't get it? why pretend? are you gay? or not?
Show you I understand?
Tell you I don't understand? Is he/she gay?

Because I'm weak like a woman.
But women are so strong. I love how you say I am weak like a women, yet women are strong so you basically say I am strong yet weak. I love it!

And embrace a future of equality
Where I am allowed to be a man
And be respected as more than just an animal. Just in general I love that last few lines they are just perfect!

Overall I love this poem it captures the essence and the feeling you are projecting. I do also agree in a future of a equality!

Please keep writing you have a lot of potential!

PM me for some more advice I would be happy to give you advice!

XOXO
colie18

I really liked this poem. It has a lot of very interesting ideas and its structure and style are very unique. I especially liked how you opened it. The tone perfectly suited the narrator's disgust for the other men on this person's lips. Like WarriorPrincess, I was a bit thrown by the rape reference and the part about becoming gay. They didn't seem to fit with what I was interpreting the narrator to be saying. Besides that, I really liked the mood and tone you used in this piece. Good work.

Thank you everyone for he reviews! So, this is my explanation about the background of the poem.

It's about how there are so many females who hate men in this world, where feminism has gone out of control and now it's turning into prejudice against men, as WarriorPrincess rightly said. The poem is addressed to a fictional friend of mine who I am semi in love with but also hate her at the same time for hating me and my kind.

The firts 2 stanzas is about how she hates men and how I am veering towards a hatred of men - almost a self hatred because I feel looked down upon, and the instict is to agree with those who look down on you to get their approval.

The third stanza is about how if she raped me (not that she would, but if she did) it would show a lust and that's like a weakness because usually this type of woman tries to hide the fact that she has any sort of lust and everything is all moral and pure with her, supposedly unlike savage men. And that therefore this weakness would allow me to love her because she wouldn't be so cold after. This deliberately ignores the 'um, but she raped you', because it ties in to my helf hatred here.

The fourth stanza, the pretending to be gay part is about trying to pretend that I am less man than I really am (no homophobia involved, just that this kind of woman generally likes gay guys, don't ask me why. I think it could be because she has this complex where she can like men who don't like her because if she 'gave in' to a straight guy it would be weakness.)

'Weak like a woman, But women are so strong' refers to me pretending to be weaker and meeker in order to gain strength, when actually women shun this for themselves as unfeminist, so they are trying to reverse the evil into another symmetrical evil, and not trying to repair it into equality, and that's basically what the last stanza says.

AdamBH wrote:Men.
Men men men.
What a filthy taste on your pristine lips.

I love these first three lines.

Your eyes look so cold,
A warmth is hidden.
But I see it when you talk to your girlfriends.
That's the real you.

And me. When will I be one too?
When will I be just like you?
Like a noble diamond
Without this manhood to taint me;
Without this courseness to faint me
Like a rag you threw away.

Secret is, I might have loved you.
But I also hate you deep inside.
Maybe if you raped me
It would show a weakness,
SOMETHING behind where you hide.
Something true for me to love
Without the lies of silence.

So what now?
Should I pretend to be gay?
Show you I understand?
Tell you I don't understand?

This stanza rocked. I enjoy the conversational quality of it.

So what then?
Should I love how you hate me?
Let you just bait me?
Because I'm weak like a woman.

nice line*

But women are so strong.

Why do I have to play that game of revenge
With you and all of history?
It's not my fault. I wasn't there.
So stop living in the past
And embrace a future of equality
Where I am allowed to be a man
And be respected as more than just an animal.

This was a very strong poem! Good job! I commend you for having such deep thought and words into your work. You're only 15 and I read it knowing that you were. But the maturity of it is above your age. You have talent. I think the title could be stronger as well.

Boy I can relate, I'm LastPaladin and I shall be your reviewer. I've read two of your poems so far and as of now this strikes me as your best, especially after reading the explanation of each stanza. I like how you convey male sexism in such a way, movies often do it, and other sources it gets infuriating and what attracted me to the poem was the title, I feel like that a lot, but enough, I shall now review.

I'm not going to review this in stanza as it take too long, so instead shall review this by what thoughts I had. I love how raw and passionate this is, reminds me much of my thought processes when I get furious at certain things, for instance historic revisionism. So I can relate to the catharsis of it, and does feel very cathartic. I also love how primal it is too, resorting to crude prejudice and oblique sexism. I'm really impressed with you captured this topic.

Love this line:

Should I love how you hate me?
Let you just bait me?

It's strong and equally evocative but tragic in a sense too, plus the anger in the words is clearly evident.

Overall: I really enjoyed this piece and can so relate to what it says, male sexism does exist, but media tries to deny it as it would make 'tough men' appear weak. Sickening don't you think?

Hope this helps.