Young Writers Society

Sympathy is a Sin.
Thick and running through my lips,
Drenching my body in its darkness,
Bleeding out from the hole which is my heart.
Making me retch and and vomit words I should keep inside.
They tumble off of my tounge like suicide,
Staining my me pure black with theyre sins.
Like maggots they eat away at me.

Until I am unable to feel...

Alone and in darkness...

Consumed by the hole in my heart.

Right....well I have no other option but to label this emo poetry. I have a few problems with this piece, but nothing some editing can't fix - hopefully.

Sympathy is a Sin. Alright, that's fine. I would have liked you to explain why sympathy is a sin, or rather show why you feel it is. From this point on you're describing the aftermath of some horrible sin, but the reader is quite confused as to how you came to this.

Thick and running through my lips, Same thing here. The reader isn't sure what is flowing through your lips. Is it sympathy? How could sympathy cause such pain? These are the questions your readers are wondering, and the rest of your piece really doesn't do much to answer.

Drenching my body in its darkness,

Bleeding out from the hole which is my heart. Ok....so now we have a heart shaped hole in your universe (lol sorry, God of Small Things reference)...why? Why are you heartbroken? Or is it not that you're heartbroken, but rather heartless? Seeing as those are two COMPLETELY different things you aren't going to want to leave it up to the readers to guess.

Making me retch and and vomit words I should keep inside. We're starting to get at something here. You're getting sympathy, so you're speaking freely thing that you'd rather bottle up. That....alright and all, but you can take it to a whole new level if you SHOW the reader this story, rather than just giving us this simple synopsis. Also, I'm not sure if retch is the right word for there. It's your call, but it just rubs me the wrong way.

They tumble off of my tounge like suicide,

Staining my me pure black with theyre sins. They're=They are. Their= possessive. You want 'their'.

Like maggots they eat away at me.



Until I am unable to feel...



Alone and in darkness...



Consumed by the hole in my heart.



My issue with this whole piece is you don't show the reader what is going on. You only describe your soul-wrenching sadness.

Keep writing!

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i just recognized you're new here on YWS, this is a very goo site for writers, so welcome and have fun
now onto your poem






Sympathy is a Sin.-- i like how you bolded sin

Thick and running through my lips,

Drenching my body in its darkness,

Bleeding out from the hole which is my heart.

Making me retch and and vomit words I should keep inside.

They tumble off of my tounge like suicide,--- this was my favorite line in the whole entire piece!!!

Staining my me pure black with theyre sins. you mean with "their" sins, theway you said it, it was like they are sins

Like maggots they eat away at me.---- ew, gross



Until I am unable to feel...



Alone and in darkness...



Consumed by the hole in my heart.


well, this piece was ok and the meaning of it was untrue!
simpathy is not a sin, but maybe i am just biased

good start, keep writing and welcome to YWS

---Jon---

well, this was definately depressing.
other reviews have covered the main issues that popped out at me.
the biggest one that i saw--and this is just my opinion--is that you didn't describo what was really going on in reality. not just in your mind, or internally, in your soul, whatever you want to call it.

even a simple, two word stanza or something in between each one that you have already, that keeps repeating the same thing. the thing that made you feel this way.

anyhow, this was a good poem. but just good. sorry.

welcome to YWS (couldn't end on that note)! i hope to see more of your stuff around this site!


-GC10

Hey! Very nice poem; i liked it a lot. However, there are a few minor things that are really annoying me...

MadamCharlotta wrote:Sympathy is a Sin.
Thick and running [s]through[/s] from my lips,

I love this line, contrary to previous reviews. I think it presents a clear image and shouldn't be scrapped at all. However, i think you have an error in the punctuation - there shouldn't really be a full stop after sin on the first line. Perhaps substitute for a comma or maybe even a colon or something.
Also, have you considered changing running to something like... dripping? It seems that 'thick' and 'running' are a little contradictory - thick things don't run like water does. They sort of... splodge. Lol. Perhaps consider, although i don't think this line needs changing, really, and it's just my crazy-minded opinion.

Drenching my body in its darkness,

Drenching seems like an iffy word. Probably because, again, it's not really usual for something that's thick to drench. Thin liquid like water drenches, not something thick like... er... really thick goo. (that's the best example i could think of...) Perhaps you could reword to something like seeping. Seeping seems like a better word, and it's slightly less used. If you chose to use it the line would read like...

it's darkness seeping down my body,

Can you see what i mean? You might not agree - it's just my opinion and everything, so don't feel like every reader would think the same as me. I am a little bit wierd.

Bleeding out from the hole which is my heart.

Hm. I don't like this line at all. It's different from the ones above, the ones which i really liked. I think it's a little bit cliche. 'The hole which is my heart...' Hm.
Couldn't you just put something like Bleeding from my heart or maybe even think of a better adjective before heart. I'm sorry to seem so critical and picky, but the other parts of your poems are so original and very imaginative that i don't like this line. It's a little bit too used.
Maybe consider using a word like 'gnarled' or 'uneven' or... something. The description you've used is quite common to describe people who are heart-broken or something, and it just doesn't fit.

Making me retch and and vomit words that I should keep inside.

Fantastic line - probably my favourite!

They tumble off of my tounge like suicide,
Staining [s]my[/s] me pure black with their[s]yre[/s] sins.

I hate these lines, again. Gr. Sorry! I don't understand the suicide bit; do you mean that the words are commiting suicide? The alliteration in 'tumble off of my tongue' is quite cool, and saying 'pure black' rather than 'pure white' is also quite cool, but... i don't know. I just don't think that these lines add to the poem. Could you consider taking them out? It's just a suggestion, so don't feel like you absolutely have to or anything; it's just my opinion.

Like maggots they eat away at me.

This is an OK line. It's not anything special like the one about wretching and vomiting, but it's an alright line (i'm so picky, aren't i? lol). It just seems that something a little more interesting than maggots or 'eat' could have been used - you seem like that kind of writer, am i wrong?

Until I am unable to feel...

Alone and in darkness...

Consumed by the hole in my heart.

The ending, i thought, didn't do the start of the poem justice.
I understood what the poem was about (i think) and correct me if i'm wrong, but i imagined that you meant that sympathy is a useless sort of emotion, and that when somebody feels bad, sympathy can make them feel worse - how could anyone else understand the way that they are feeling? At least, that's what i think the poem is about. I may well be wrong.
That's why i think the end is a little crap - i originally believed that you were saying sympathy is bad for the person who you sympathise with (because of the above explaination) and because of that, it is a sin. The last three lines are a little bit odd. They feel like they should be in a different poem, and not this wonderfully descriptive, none cliched one that is about a really thought about topic.
i don't think that this is an 'emo poem' at all. I've read emo poems, and this one definately isn't one. It had real substance. I recently read a book that was full of description like yours, and i thought that the writer was a total legend, so i guess you're one of that breed! Very unique description. That's why i think that you should redo some of it; i'm not going to pretend that it hasn't got problems, in my mind, but they're very easily fixed, i'm sure. If you refine this, it'll be a cracker with some real meaning and thought put into it.

If i were you, i'd take out the ending, or change it completely. It is the only part of the poem which does feel emo.


I really hope that i've been helpful for you and haven't A) been a nag and B) bored you to death. Also, i'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Please keep writing, and best of luck.

from charlie. ^^

for the most part i don't really get this piece. i know you start the whole thing out by saying that sympathy is a sin,but upon further reading, i was unable to see exactly what it was that you were talking about and how it was that you came to that conclusion. i would like to know a little bit more about that. also, i don't really get the exposition that you do give, and the meaning of what is written is something that i cannot understand. i would like to see, if you were to continue with this piece, the main idea of sympathy being a sin as well as how it is or even describing it. it doesn't have to sound artsy as long as you get down the general idea of the piece.

Making me retch and and vomit words I should keep inside.
They tumble off of my tounge like suicide


This line rolls off the tongue perfectly. And the imagery, although it dosn't entirely make sense, does come into picture. I just didn't understand how suicide can tumble.

Just watch out for repeating words. Think it shows where you have stopped and picked up again while typing through your repeated words.

Other than that, just watch your puntuation.