Reaching Out

Okay...this is my first poem, so I want to know what you honestly think.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Gasp!
The knife falls,
upon upturned flesh.
the scar--bright and red
for all the world to see.

See the hidden emotions,
the ones behind the scars.
Can't you see?
All I want is to escape,
escape-the pain brought on me.

My emotions hidden deep,
my pain not easily seen.
Why don't you realize?
All I need is a friend,
someone there for me.

I'm hiding behind my mask.
Not willing to show my pain,
not wanting to seem week.
But needing someone to realize,
the pain I hide inside.

Hey Miss*Mary, here's your first review I'll go through it verse by verse and tell you what I think, OK?

*Gasp!
The knife falls,
upon upturned flesh.
the scar--bright and red
for all the world to see.

Well, the intro is certainly unique. I'm not sure if you know how to use the formatting on the boards yet, but if I were you I'd put the "gasp" in italics, and drop the exclamation mark, like this:

gasp
the knife falls...

Also, I personally think that the first couple of lines would work better as one:

the knife falls upon upturned flesh -
a scar, bright and red,
for all the world to see.

But then, I'm always messing with other people's poetic structure, so its up to you LOL.

See the hidden emotions,
the ones behind the scars.
Can't you see?
All I want is to escape,
escape-the pain brought on me.

This verse doesnt seem to add much to the poem and is a wee bit cliche. Perhaps you could change this a bit and say more about how, although the scars are visible, the emotion behind them is concealed from view? That is, rather than pointing to the hidden emotions, you could kind of imply them (keeping with the "hidden" theme) by talking about the scar itself, and what it represents. I think you need to go a bit deeper here, and (as always) show, dont tell

My emotions hidden deep,
my pain not easily seen.
Why don't you realize?
All I need is a friend,
someone there for me.

Again, a more oblique approach might help here. We get a lot of poems on YWS which deal with cutting and the like, and many of them are similarly direct. Personally, I would take this further, using a lot more imagery to really capture the feelings behind the act. Is this a plea for attention? Why? Does it hurt? Is it pleasurable? What emotions is the cutter running from? Why has s/he turned to self-harm? Is it liberating? Does it make it worse? Why? I need some more specifics in order to "know" the narrator. Who is s/he? What is s/he trying to say?

I'm hiding behind my mask.
Not willing to show my pain,
not wanting to seem week.
But needing someone to realize,
the pain I hide inside.

This is really just a reformulation of the previous verse. What is this pain? Where does it come from? Why is it being hidden? What exactly is it hiding behind? Is there anything other than a mask which can be used to conceal? What mask is it anyway? Is s/he happy on the outside? Does s/he realize what s/he is doing is harmful or is it carthritic? What is her motivation?

I guess I have a lot of questions, LOL. A good start nevertheless, but I would like some more information - some more depth. If I were you I would revise this and at each line ask yourself - "What am I trying to convey? Can I do it better? Is there another way to say this?" You might surprise yourself with your inventiveness

Looking forward to seeing some more of your work on here!

Cheers,
~bubbles

Miss*Mary,


Welcome to the YWS Poetry Forum.

Let me start by saying bubblewrapped hinted at but never directly stated the underlying pathology of this piece. Besides being cliche, telling instead of showing, and so on, the poem suffers from a much more fatal wound: it fundamentally fails to evoke emotion from your readers.

Certainly this evokes reaction, but I would hesitate to say your intention was to bring out indifference and disgust. Not to discourage you, but this certainly won't make anyone care about the narrator and his/her predicament. It's a lightweight, self-absorbed bit of prose with linebreaks and a close already ordained in your first stanza. There are some excellent articles in both Squills (the YWS Writing Blog) and the Writing Tips forum on poetry that you should and need to review.


All the best,
Brad

I did like this, although reading through it, i do think that you could make it much better than it already is. What is the pain that you are talking about? It would be nice to see some clues as to why the narrator is hurting.