Battle Scars

Considering that I don't write much lately, I'm thoroughly out of practice. Tear it apart, I need some serious help.


My fingers search the space between us
For the stars that stole my childish wishes.
On raw knees, I beg them to let me recant,
To take back my mistakes, always too many,
And fill them instead with every word that
Digs sharp claws into my throat and churns
Inside my overfilled acidic stomach.
I’m addicted to the taste of all the things
I thought I’d have more time to say,
To find ways to stitch them through silence.
My hands are scratched from holding on
Much too tightly to things that will leave me,
And clinging desperately to the one last thing
That I never wanted to have to let go.
But someday I know – and this may kill me –
You’ll leave me covered in every battle scar
I won from waging wars against myself.

Hi E.P.!
So I went ahead and read your poem. Though I love writing poetry, I have to warn you I'm not very "learned" in the way of poems so I won't touch anything technical, I'll let someone else do that, lol!
I really enjoyed the feeling you portrayed. (for me) it felt like longing, and regret for the past. It painted a pretty cool picture...sorry I'm being so vague here, I knew what I wanted to say after reading it but it's hard to say in words... keep up the good work and I'll keep reading. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!
~DakotaKnight

Splodey, you finally wrote! I knew you could do it.

I don't really have that much to say about this piece. I've told you before that I love your voice, the way you pick simple words to describe things in ways that I, personally, would never have thought of. Your work still reminds me of Laurie Halse Anderson's writing; I would consider that a compliment because I think she's an amazing writer. Anyway, this piece doesn't really say anything but I can still feel it, if that makes sense.

One thing that bothers me is some of the phrasing. Some of the sentences are really long and as I read it I found myself searching for places to breathe. I read it out loud a few times and there are places where my lungs were screaming to breathe but there were no marks. I could see this as a style thing, a certain way to read this, but maybe try and rephrase some things. Example:

On raw knees, I beg them to let me recant,
To take back my mistakes, always too many,
And fill them instead with every word that
Digs sharp claws into my throat and churns
Inside my overfilled acidic stomach.

Some really great descriptions but there are ways that you could break this up and make it smoother to read. (You don't have to do this but it's my opinion and I think in doing this you could make this longer.)

Other than some personal things, I didn't see anything wrong with it. I thought it was good but adding some words and some breaks could make it better, I think.
I hope this helps. PM me when you decide to write some more, I'd love to read and help if I can(:
~peanut~

I love the detailed imagery, and your word choice is....very good. I am not good at nitpicking, but I hope that the ones above me did, and it made up for my sense of reviewing style.

Wow! I loved this, you painted a great image. Maybe you should just add a bit more color to the description? It was great, but if you were to write about the vibrant red of the scratches, it might help. That's just my opinion, but I loved this!

Well, the nitpicker(s) above did a good job, I only skimmed through their nitpicking to see if they took anything I would say, and well... they stole all my critiques, so I have nothing other to say then the poem wasn't good, like at all. It was awesome! It would be a lot easier to read if it was broken up into stanzas because when I see walls of text I get discouraged and dont want to read them. But good job! Keep writing!

I think that the general raw emotion behind it is brilliant and the imagery is fantastic but is you're looking for criticism then i'll try to look for something...
... ok perhaps the flow is a little fragmented in places but then personally I quite like the sense of disorientation that has been created because of that. sorry, i'm struggling to find any major faults, it's not perfect obviously but then perfect poems always seem so flat and emotionless. It reached out to something in me and that is the most important thing I think.

Splodey,

I totally forgot that I'd promised you a review! I'm so sorry for the wait. Also, don't be discouraged, it takes a while to get back into it. The best suggestion I can give you is to review as much as you can, read poetry, review it. It'll allow you to see what people are doing right, wrong and where you want to take your poetry.

The thing here is it attempts to be "deep" and "emotional" beckoning in the typical teen. But really it comes off as pretentious, a mix between a slightly more elaborate vocabulary with a purpose that doesn't have all too much depth.

Start with the flow, enjambment etc.

On raw knees (no comma) I beg them to let me recant (recant is such an odd word. No comma)
To take back my mistakes (there's already a natural pause because of the construction of the words.) always too many,
And fill them instead with every word that (bring digs to this line)
Digs sharp claws into my throat and churns

Read it to yourself. All those commas serve no purpose to your poem, rather it forces the reader to pause right when we've stepped into the flow of the poem. Then the line breaks add it, so you have use halting and starting again like we're on some struggling train.

Next, avoid begging your reader to take something away from it, because it comes across as pretentious, you're writing poems that are personal but you can't shove that down a reader's throat. Think of movies, people don't cry during those sad movies because someone says "I'm homeless" or "I'm hopelessly in love" or "I'm hurt emotionally." rather because it's presented to us in such a manner that we can be there in the moment with them and it's showed to us rather then told to us.

I have lots of studying to do, so practice is all I can suggest for you now!

Kamas