My Best Friend Is Depressed

Listen to my silence, the silence between your words
we’ll go through this life side by side, childish kindred birds.
I’ll dip and spring, and fly and rise to your fretting notes of sorrow.
Listen to my even breathing, catching in your sobs,
go anywhere, my dearest friend,
and I will try to meet you there.

If I must meet you only halfway, if I fail to fully understand
don’t judge me or mistrust me, my loyalty and love is full
if comfort cannot satisfy; I’ll hold all your shaking fingers in my hand.
I’ll hold them always in my hand. I’ll carry you in my heart.
Listen to my song of freedom, I’ll get you there someday,
even though the world is a blackened meadow today.

I will listen to you. Only you.
Even if it’s just a whisper or an angry, frustrated shout-
I shall never let our fragile candle burn out.
For you, are me, and I am you
come crimson days or china blue.

All alone, arms wrapped around your knees
with your head dropped low, crying not enough,
friend from enemy is impossible to tell.
Listen to your sorrow,
I will meet you
deep inside
your misery’s
well.

The rhyming is sporadic and it through me off when reading the poem. I'm not sure if you meant to rhyme or if it just happened, but if you did mean to some of it felt forced. Also, try to keep the size of your stanzas and individual lines consistant.

One of the most beautiful poems I've seen on this forum. In my opinion, is perfect as it it. One of my favorites *clicks on the little gold star*
I'm sure someone will give you a constructive review

*Kat*

P.S: LOVED IT!

I guess I;m here for a 'constructive review'!

Listen to my silence, the silence between your words
we’ll go through this life side by side, childish kindred birds. These last three word are quite a mouthful, it seems. I think it would work just as well without 'childish', since the next line gives that sense of youth.
I’ll dip and spring, and fly and rise to your fretting notes of sorrow. Fretful?
Listen to my even breathing, catching in your sobs,
go anywhere, my dearest friend,
and I will try to meet you there.

One of the earlier reviews mentioned how sporatic the rhyming is. I agree, but that's no necessarily a negative thing. In fact, I think I like it. You have us wondering whether or not the next line is going to rhyme.

If I must meet you only halfway, if I fail to fully understand
don’t judge me or mistrust me, for my loyalty and love is full
if comfort cannot satisfy; I’ll hold all your shaking fingers in my hand. This should be a comma, methinks.
I’ll hold them always in my hand. I’ll carry you in my heart. I don't like the repetition here.
Listen to my song of freedom, I’ll get you there someday, Semi-colon here! Sorry. I'm a grammar freak.
even though the world is a blackened meadow today.

Lovely.

I will listen to you. Only you. I will listen to you, and only you. That's just my opinion, though. Seems to flow better.
Even if it’s just a whisper or an angry, frustrated shout-
I shall never let our fragile candle burn out.This line, however, I dislike the rhyme. I'd get rid of the 'shout' and trade it for 'scream' or 'cry'. Consider it.
For you, are me, and I am you Nix the first comma. It's misplaced, I believed.
come crimson days or china blue.

This last rhyme seems a little random, like you just needed any old word to rhyme. I love the last line alone, without the second-to-last one. It just comes across as forced, and I don't think you;d be losing anything my making that second-to-last line not rhyme.

All alone, arms wrapped around your knees
with your head dropped low, crying not enough,
friend from enemy is impossible to tell.
Listen to your sorrow,
I will meet you
deep inside
your misery’s
well.

I love this last stanza, but it seems to me that the second and third lines don't make that much sense. They're sertainly pretty, but really, what do they mean? Not crying loud enough for you to hear them? Are you not sure anymore if they're your friend or your enemy? Reread tht bit. Your meaning isn't clear, and the enemy part seems a little out of place-- after all, you've been praising them and comforting them, and then suddenly they could be an enemy? If I'm just deciphering it wrong, you might want to re-word it so I can decipher it right

I though this was very nice. Except for the part I pointed out, your meaning was crystal clear, yet your words remained slightly mysterious. I find many poets stuffing so much imagery and flowing phrases that their meaning is lost in all the commotion. Here, I'm glad to find you avoiding that!

And, besides that one rhyme that I said seemed a bit forced/off, you had a gentle pattern of rhyming that wasn't so strict you couldn't work around it, but was clear enough for us to notice and appreciate it. Make sense? The other things I pointed out were just nit-picks, mainly, which I think you'd do well to pay attention to but don't necessarily have to change.

Good luck, and good job!

~Evi

Oh my gosh! I loved it! I wish I could've showed this to my friend while s/he was going through depression, it was terrible. The rhyme scheme sounded a little off in stanza two, but other than that, it was great!

I'm sorry about your friend, I'll be praying for your friend!

Keep writing!

God bless!

Aw, I really liked this. I can sort of relate, because me and my friends all have our own little issues, myself majorly included, and even though we piss each other off beyond all measure and pretend to hate each other and so forth, we really do care about each other, try to make everyone laugh, cheer people up (which usually involves making them angry and feel awkward, but we eventually laugh), and so on.

Getting to the poem itself, I couldn't find much wrong with it that wasn't already said. I definitely agree with the rhythm though, because I felt myself the entire poem straining to get some sort of beat going. Also, you had some commas in random places that I thought you didn't really need them. "I’ll dip and spring, (throws off the flow, you already have all these "and"s, and I didn't really see the point) and fly and rise to your fretting notes of sorrow." There was also that one the Evi mentioned.

So far as the rhyming goes, in some spots it was nice, and in others it seemed forced. Because it was a bit inconsistent it made the poem feel unbalanced. Other than those few little things, I really loved this!

I enjoyed this poem actually...but the part of it that I think needs to be focused on is the structure itself. All of your lines needs to be evened out because right now it seems as though they are following no symmetrical pattern...which is needed for a poem with this kind of rhyming scheme in it.

Otherwise, good thought experiment just concentrate on bettering your structure.

'friend from enemy is impossible to tell.'

How very true!

I really like this poem. Its tone is spellbinding and the poem knows exactly where it's going. I have one reservation though.

'...I’ll hold all your shaking fingers in my hand.

I’ll hold them always in my hand...'

I'm not feeling the repetition here. I like the idea, but I think that you should cut out the second line. The first one can stand and shout on its own, but that's just my humble opinion.

I really like this piece, well done.