A Sickened Mind

A Sickened Mind: I edited this AGAIN, so if you're wondering why it keeps changing...

Fury-filled screaming echoes throughout,
I cower in my haven with disgust in my heart.
I cannot escape, for it’s as a tempest wrecking the house.
Will I be safe down here in the basement?

Swearing at me, in anger and violence,
accusing me of thievery, when he himself is thief.
The burning pain is like salt on wounds.

Sometimes offering brotherly love,
but soon the jokes become threats,
the laughter, malice.
Enjoying his company, fear soon strikes my heart.
An icy gleam has entered his eyes.

As soon as he changes his evil mind,
you must run, you must flee,
from he who will kill.
Ignoring him is the best solution,
hiding is the safest plan.

I know this in my heart and mind,
and at his demented words, I feel sick inside
wanting to defend myself, but afraid to try.

With loving concern you think how handsome,
young and ignorant he is;
but anger soon grips you in its claw.
Finds you turning in fear at his ghastly talk.
Empty sobbing in my pillow solves nothing.

“What is wrong with him?” I ask,
“Why this hatred and anger?”

Regret overwhelms me for wrong words spoken.
Pain reels inside at giving in. For reacting as he wanted.
He thrives on others’ depression.
Thrives on their grief and sadness.

It makes me want to weep, but I must hold it inside;
nearly exploding with helpless anger.
Love is stuck in a pit deep down,
but frustration oozes out, and I say the dreaded words.
“I hate him!”

Why, oh, why can’t he just be normal?
I feel pity for him, for his messed up soul.
He who is content with not even himself.
A ravaged mind in torment can never be at peace.

This sour mixture of love and caring, hate and fear.
They do not abide together, it pickles innocent minds.
I utter sincerely felt words. “Why can’t he forgive?”

I feel as if I’ll crush him, when he says such wicked things.
Hatred burns within me at the cruelty of it all.
Blackened flames envelope, circle round this bedroom.

I cannot bear this anymore; constant verbal abuse.
But love prevails, for he is family.
Sobs and sighs, a broken heart…a whisper.
“Please let this be the end, brother. I love you still.”




This is a poem I wrote about my seriously confused brother, after one of his "break outs" of last night.
I know this is long, but I didn't know how else to make it. Please comment and critique. Thanks.

Saddening! But it's very well written. The only thing I can say is that you might want to change Try to Trying in the first stanza. Great job! Thanks for using punctuation and good grammar!

Hey, Isha here. Just one thing I would like to say right off the bat: Lengthy poems are my favourite. Don't worry about how long they are too much.

Matthews wrote:This screaming I hear,
Comes from upstairs,
I hide in the basement,
Try to ignore it.

For the first stanza, I agree with Kwantack. It would flow much easier if you turned 'Try' into 'Trying.' Other than that, the rest flows nicely and you already have a feel of what the poem is going to be about.

Matthews wrote:Swearing at me,
In anger and violence,
Accusing me of thievery,
When He’s the one who steals.

The second stanza flows nicely, though the 'He' doesn't need any capitalization.

Matthews wrote:One moment offering brotherly
Love; joking and jesting and
Being kind.

This stanza was a bit... off. I didn't like the first line break. 'Love' looks like it should be on the first line, but if you put it there, the second two would be too small. Adding more words and imagery to this could help. I know that these three lines can be more powerful.

Matthews wrote:As soon as He changes His
Evil mind, you must
Run, run, run from He
Who will kill.

Once again, 'He' and 'His' don't need to be capitalized. I suppose that you don't necessarly have to take that off, just saying. The triple 'run' sort of threw me off a little. I don't know, I guess it could work either way though. This stanza is, overall, quite powerful.

Matthews wrote:This betrayal hurts, His
Only thoughtfulness is
To use you.

Here is another line break I didn't like very much. Move the 'His' to the second line, and maybe scootch the 'is' to the third. Otherwise, I really liked this stanza, too.

Matthews wrote:You think how handsome, young
And foolish He is, the next turning
In fear at His ghastly talk.

“What is wrong with Him” I ask,
“Why this hatred and anger?”

Just one thing here. 'the next' didn't really make any sense. The next what? Was there supposed to be another line put in here or something? I really liked the last part though. The dialogue added to the poem nicely.

Matthews wrote:At His demented words,
I feel sick inside, wanting to defend
Myself, but afraid to try.

I loved this stanza. Even the oddish line breaks didn't throw me off. I even think that it could be a bit longer, but that's entirely up to you.

Matthews wrote:It makes me want to cry,
But I must hold it inside,
So instead of tears, out comes anger
Made up of pent up emotions.

I was trying to find the rhyme here... something just sounded like it rhymed. Then I realized that it was the last word of the last stanza I had quoted, and the first line of this one. The rest of the poem doesn't rhyme, so... I don't know, it sort of threw me off. Only a bit though. If there's any other word you can use, then great. If not, then oh well.

Matthews wrote:Why oh why can’t He just be
Normal? I feel pity for Him,
For His messed up soul, He
Who is content with not even
Himself.

The first line in this stanza wasn't nearly as powerful as the rest. I would revise it somehow, use more dramatic words (without breaking into cliches of course).

Matthews wrote:This confusion; this mix of
Love and caring, hate and fear.
They do not abide together, so I
Am forced to ask “Why can’t this
Sadness just end?”

I liked this stanza, and don't have much to say about it. (Though... once again, the lines were broken up in sort of a weird way.)

Matthews wrote:I feel as if I’ll crush Him, when
He says such wicked things, I feel
Hatred burning within me, at the
Cruelty of it all.

This stanza would be really good, if you moved around a few words. Put the 'when' on the next line, then the 'I feel' on the line below and the 'at the' on the last line... Those line breaks are odd. Otherwise, very nice.

Matthews wrote:I cannot take this anymore,
This constant verbal abuse;
Yet I love Him, He who is family,
So I say to myself,
“Please let this be the end, brother.
I love you still.”

The last stanza was definately my favourite. No weird line breaks, it flowed beautifully, the imagery was great... I really liked it. You could feel the emotion in this last stanza.

Overall, other than the weird line breaks (which aren't hard to fix, I promise) this poem was really good. Very sad, and I'm sorry about your brother. Anyways, great job!

xoxo
Isha

Hey Matthew,

My first suggestion would be to watch out for your sentence structures and punctuation. Already from the first stanza you're stumbling all over yourself; the two parts of it would be better off separated by a period, as the connection between them is too vague/not worded in a way that makes the comma appropriate. This goes for the whole of the poem; you've got commas where they shouldn't be and periods seemingly randomly interrupting the flow of your sentences when commas would be more appropriate. Please, watch out for sentence fragments; you're extremely disjointed in places, and again this hurts your flow. Same for how you sometimes mix up sentences towards the end, in what reads to me like an attempt to sound more formal/solemn. Normal sentence structure is just as good, and doesn't sound half as forced.

Second, capitalizing the first letter of each line is unnecessary. It's distracting, in part because it detracts from the significance of the cap'd "He/His" (which look kind of annoying to me, especially since it's usually done in a more religious context, but which at least is understandable as emphasis towards a certain person).

You've also got some rather cliche lines that could probably be excised or at least changed to be something a little more original. Right now you don't have anything that particularly grabs at my attention and makes me want to read further or will make me remember this. Some originality and a touch more of emotion would not be amiss.

Hello again, Matthews!

This will probably be a shorter review, since I've already been at this once before. (Hope you don't mind too much.) But you said you had done some editing and wanted an opinion. I also don't know how good the quality of this review is going to be. It's been a much longer day than I expected it to be, so I apologize in advance. xD

So, you've fixed the odd line breaks rather well, and it flows a lot easier now. There are a few other things that I'd like to point out now, though.

Like Jaggs was saying, there are a decent amount of clichés here. A little bit of expansion on the emotions and freshening up your imagery would fix this. Take one emotion and think of a few adjectives, verbs, nouns, etcetera, that could be used to describe these emotions. The emotion is evident: Anger, fear a little compassion maybe... but throw in a little bit extra. Something deeper. What are these emotions doing to you, for starters.

Anyways, I would have much more written down, and this probably would have been more in depth and had more quality, but I'm out of time for the night. Overall, I still do like this poem, but there's always room for improvement.

Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance and I hoped that this helped a little bit at least.

Peronally, I loved the line; "At his demented words, I feel sick inside.Wanting to defend myself, but afraid to try." The poem itself is sad, but sometimes our lives are never as easy as others. It's hard to deal with when family, really dosen't act like "family." The last stanza was my favorite "I cannot take this anymore; constant verbal abuse. Yet I love him, he who is family, so I say to myself,“Please let this be the end, brother. I love you still.”" No matter what family is family, and we love them even when we feel like we shouldn't. I loved how much emotion you show in this.. Keep writing please, you do a good job

This poem brought tears to my eyes, and I really think that it is good. My heart started to race as I continued reading, no exaggeration, trying to figure out the problem and see what he would do. It is very well written and my eyes can't spot any mistakes. So good job and these are my favorite lines:

With loving concern you think how handsome,
young and ignorant he is;
but anger soon grips you in its claw.
Finds you turning in fear at his ghastly talk.
Empty sobbing in my pillow solves nothing.