Your pain

I step aside,
I watch you cry. My soul is torn apart.
I want to stop the pain you feel.
I want to soothe your aching heart.
You push me away when I touch your face,
tears roll down your cheek.
You tell me not to touch you,
your voice is strained and weak.
I want to huddle to your chest,
I want to show I care.
You tell me you are broken...
broken beyond repair.
I want to stay with you.
I may not understand,
but you may feel a little better if you hold my hand.
I hold you in my arms,
my lips pressed to your hair.
Tears stream down your face,
you say the world's unfair.
Slowly you drift off to sleep,
huddled up to me.
I kiss you gently on the lips,
your face is all I want to see.
I wish I could really comfort you.
Make you feel truly good.
I kiss you tenderly once again,
hoping to uplift your mood.
You give a quiet sigh,
your expression seems less pained.
I hug you warmly once again,
your smile is unexplained.
I need you,
I want you to be okay.
Only your smile can brighten my day.

Hullo, Moonglowe! I don’t believe I’ve met you before, and I see you’re fairly new, so welcome to the YWS. Feel free to ask me – or any moderator – questions, we’re here to help. ^^

Onto the poem:

I can see the emotion you have in this, and your intentions in writing it. As a narrative poem (Which, at this point, this poem is) it makes sense, in a way, you have a series of events. The problem, however, is that this is all tell and no show. By which I mean, you describe the events, the emotions and the situation without ever giving us some imagery or poetry. I realise that sounds odd – a poem without poetry- but it happens sometimes when we’re too focused on the meaning that we can’t see the actual poem for what it is, or should be.

You have a good base, the idea of speaking to another, unseen person and your progression of events is good. What you need now, though, is to inject some poetry – some imagery, similes, metaphor etc – into the poem to make it appealing to your reader. As it is, I wanted to roll my eyes, there’s little give in the way you’ve written this. You use statements with a lot of personal pronoun in there. Instead of telling us – and the other person – that you want to stop the pain he/she feels, you might want to show us. Use less statements to help your flow, as it is, everything is very stagnant. Try reading the poem aloud to get the feel of what is happening and how you need to edit.


For instance:
“I step aside,

I watch you cry.”

If you change this to “I step aside as you cry” – or something similar – your flow is so much better.


“I want to stop the pain you feel.

I want to soothe your aching heart.”

These could be put together: “The ache of your heart hurts mine.”


With a lot of your poem, condensing what you’re saying would help a lot. The poem doesn’t need to be as long as it is, some simple rearranging of lines, like above, could really help the poem out.

As I said earlier, you have a good base; use that to edit what you have into something tighter, with a little more poetry to it.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

Moonglowe wrote:Only your smile can brighten my day.

I liked that part it shows lots of emotion and stuff i think this poem is one of my Favz so far on this website very heartwarming and it makes me want to go up to some random stranger, give him a hug, and hope to not get punched in the face =D

I think its great over all i give you a 10/10 i hope you get some more poems under your belt and i hope to see more =D

-- HTML _d00d




BTW i gaves you a star =D =D =D

Moonglowe wrote:I step aside,
I watch you cry. My soul is torn apart.
I want to stop the pain you feel.
I want to soothe your aching heart.
You push me away when I touch your face,
tears roll down your cheek.
You tell me not to touch you,
your voice is strained and weak.
I want to huddle to your chest,
I want to show I care.

This entire poem is "I want, I want, I want, you want, I want, I want". If you want me to give this a line-by-line critique then make it worth my while; after an initial read, I feel that you haven't used any imagery, any figurative language, any poetic words, or any metaphor. It's just...a script for a speech. Not a poem.

You tell me you are broken...
broken beyond repair.
I want to stay with you.
I may not understand,
but you may feel a little better if you hold my hand.
I hold you in my arms,
my lips pressed to your hair.
Tears stream down your face,
you say the world's unfair.
Slowly you drift off to sleep,
huddled up to me.
I kiss you gently on the lips,
your face is all I want to see.
I wish I could really comfort you.
Make you feel truly good.
I kiss you tenderly once again,
hoping to uplift your mood.
You give a quiet sigh,
your expression seems less pained.
I hug you warmly once again,
your smile is unexplained.
I need you,
I want you to be okay.
Only your smile can brighten my day.

Once again, I couldn't find a single charged word in there that made the reader feel what you're feeling, see the smile, taste the kiss, fuse the soul, hear the silence of his heartbeat, etc. This is not even a script...it's just an incoherent diary entry mixed with broken thoughts and emotions and assumptions that the reader actually knows what you're talking about. I certainy don't - you haven't said anything about why this is happening, how long it's been, and why should the reader care. What makes it good for us to read this poem? Can we relate to it? Should we?

In general: Since you're just 13, you have a long ways to go improving your poetry and a lot of time to do it. I suggest getting rid of this entire piece and start fresh about another topic, any topic. This time make it about something that you know can touch the strings of anybody who will read it. Paint a picture in their minds. Make it three dimensional, not just flat like it is now.

Good luck.

Okay! So first of all, I gave you a star because your awesome and your poem is actually quite exceptional. So yay!

Next of all, I've been doing video critiques lately, and I did one for you! I know, exciting? Okay, maybe not for you, but it's incredibly exciting for me! Yeah... so anyway, in the video critique, I read the poem so that you can see where the awkward parts are and I commented on it and gave general advice. So yay! If you can't see the video, just PM me and I'll post a real critique with words and everything.

The video is here: http://revver.com/video/1297673/affilia ... your-pain/

Hope that helps!

Wow, that was amazing. Didn't expect to see something that well put together on a forum like this, but I guess I was horrendously wrong. Drenched in emotion, it's virtually dripping soul. "You push me away when I touch your face, tears roll down your cheek." doesn't exactly flow, but the rest of the poem does. Very good. Although, I had a hard time understanding where you were at. At first I thought you were outside a building in the mist of light rain, but at the end I felt warm like you were huddled on a bed. But surely that's better than anything I could write. I gave you a star, by the way.

The only thing that I have against this poem is that you start way to many lines with I. Vary the sentance structure. It makes the poem, well, boring when you just say I want, I want, I want.

Other than this I loved you poem. It just needs a polishing up nothing major. Your grammars pretty good, so thanks for that.

Well, great job, good luck, and keep writing!

I dont have words hahah your poem was wow lol umm hmm I have to think lol its different to read a type of writing such as this. More so when youve actually experienced it. You can play the words up a bit lol but I dont want you to change anything! What I really liked was how your poem was acceptance and reassurance it has a nice glow dont ever stop writing like this! Hhehehe lets be friends so that glow will rub of on me lol

Wow. 'Twas really nice, and sweet. But it's all "I, I, I" or "You, You, You." It sounds a little selfish, what with the I want's and all. But, if you overlook that, it's a wonderful poem.

you really make the reader feel the pain and other emotions of the poem.

very good poem i must say.