Young Writers Society

Constructive criticism is adored.


PERFECT.
It was scrawled cross the walls in a clumsy,
caricatured hand,
with lopsided letters and fraying edges, just like the ends
of her chewed-up fingernails.

Perfect was burnt into her breast, right over her heart, like a cruel, stove-heated wire,
branding her as a “not-quite-there” with an unwavering hand and a stony face.
It plagued her with searing, white hot tears
leaking from her tightly shut eyes,
welling up at memories that seemed to only repeat themselves.

There were reminders in the water-stained bathroom mirror, bitter and dark and vaguely
silhouetted, because she didn’t like to turn the light on.
Smudges marked where her face lay on its cool surface,
where she had stroked the sides of her reflection, before striking out at the
broken image with its ugly tears.
She asked herself why it could not be how she wanted it, why it could not be like everyone wanted it, why her body wouldn’t listen to her heart, screaming at her to change, to find Perfect, to scratch herself apart and snatch it from underneath her skin.

But Perfect seemed to duck and hide, shying away from her desperate fingers crawling on her reflection and across her body and hiding from the shame in her eyes.
She was an untouchable, and she no longer knew if Perfect was anywhere within her.
She wanted it, reached for it like a dying flower to the
sun, but it left her skin barren
and abandoned her like it was winter, leaving her to wistfully watch its reflections in the snow.

It was something that she’d yearned for;
her mother didn’t see Perfect in her, but tried to
cover her with it in creams and colors plastered across a too-young face,
wide-eyed and confused as to why she wasn’t good enough already.
Childhood was her with her too-big lips quivering,
trying to ask questions only to be interrupted by an angry hush,
and a chin grasped by skinny, aged hands,
and maybe a smack to the head. Motherly love was motherly judgments
and rough make-ups being swiped across her skin with splayed fingers.
When that failed, the scalpel took its place,
and it sliced and spliced away the smile of a woman who had yet to bloom.
Though it seemed that money couldn’t buy beauty:
after the second surgery, her mother gave up, and replaced her
over-enthusiastic attempts with glares and disappointment.

Her father didn’t see it either-- what he saw
was a beer bottle and the darkness of closed eyes
once the amber in his blood became too heavy.
Sometimes though, sometimes he’d look at her, and
she was the most disgusting creature he’d ever seen.
He’d tell her so, and usually punctuated his sentence with throwing an empty bottle at her,
yelling that a couple cuts might just do the trick, that maybe he could do
what the doctors couldn’t.

And that boy: he didn’t see it. He couldn’t see it, wouldn’t see it, would only watch her with
her tears and attempts at being “better”, and see an opportunity to get a pet,
and an opportunity to take someone over like a god.
She was an easy prize, one who knew her place in self-loathing,
one who hated herself, who would love him without question; in her eyes,
he embodied Perfect, this angel who could smile without hate for himself.
He knew her limits, and spat on her once she lost her worth to him,
and she’d grovelled and cried and tore herself to pieces as he smirked.
She was as imperfect as she could be to him, but she was the most perfect situation.

But she-- she took their hate for her Bible, scripted words instilling fideistic sorrow
in her twisted face, made imperfect only by the hate for herself.
She stood with blemishes leaking from her eyes, carving dreams into the walls,
and poured perfect to the world through her perfect, perfect hands and her perfect, perfect soul,
corrupted by a mantra of people who had never learned the definition for which she lived.




Thanks for reading!

-Coral-

Percy! *noms*
Because I’m me, and because I’m first up at the bat, I’m going to nitpick a little bit.

with lopsided letters and corners that frayed.

I’m a huge fan of parallelism for a huge reason: it makes things sound…right. But you have “lopsided letters” and “corners that frayed” which sounds awfully clumsy. But if “corners that frayed” becomes “frayed corners” it matches up and sounds a bit more polished, even if I know that

with searing, white hot tears.

I’m just rough on this one but I think, and don’t quote me on it, “white-hot” should be hyphenated. But that’s just a little thing. I do, however, like the imagery here. It’s that hot feeling mixed with the usually cool of tears.

and abandoned her like it was winter, and the sky was a sheet of steel.

This line kind of made me cringe back a bit, no offense. But it feels clumsily too long and the use of “and” is visibly very repetitive.

It was something that she’d yearned for, for a long, long time;
her mother didn’t see in her, but tried to
cover her with it in creams and colors plastered across a too-young face,

That slashed out bit, it really dangles there with awkward repetition and the wording is rather un-poetic. It sounds kind of like something one of my kindergarteners would say or even one of my third graders. (Love them to death but I really want to expand their vocabularies a bit.) ^_^
Another thing has to do with how confused I was by this chunk. It took about three reads through to understand what it was saying. Her mother didn’t see what in her. And for a while I was wondering whose face she was painting and plastering.

generally consisted of a beer bottle and the darkness of closed eyes,

Comma! Get rid of it! (not to sound demanding) It causes the reader to instinctively pause at the end of the line and then breaks up the transition to the next line uncomfortably.

deadened by denial, and was determined to hold her where he wanted.

I would get rid of “was” and the comma in this line, again mostly because of parallelism.

He spat on her once when she lost her worth to him,
and she (had) grovelled and cried and tore herself to pieces as he
smirked. She was as imperfect as she could be to him.

There were several little tweaks I wanted to point out up there but I did it in the quote and in bold. Also, “grovelled” only has one L.
Another thing that gets me is suddenly you have “smirked” kind of dangling at the end of the last line and it’s very out of character with the rest of the poem. I would maybe nudge it back up to the line before it.

And she took their word for her Bible, scripted words instilling fideistic sorrow
in her blemished, twisted face, made imperfect only by the hate for herself.
She stood with blemishes leaking from her eyes, carving dreams into the walls,
and poured perfect to the world through her perfect, perfect hands and her perfect, perfect soul,
corrupted by a mantra of people who had never learned the definition for which she lived.

Okay, if you didn’t notice, there was a little repetition in there that I bolded.
The thing about this is that, as an ending and idea-wise, I like it. But the way you worded it feels very uncomfortable and I found myself stumbling as I read it. And seeing as it’s the ending and a very key part, it could really do for some extra special cleaning up.


Overall, I do understand what you meant when you said that the idea is a cliché. But oh well. Because you did put this nice twist to it. Usually I see the perfection themed poems in the lyric or dramatic poetry section. So seeing this in Narrative, and not by mistake, is refreshing.
It’s just that the wording could really do with some polishing.

Anyways, if there’s anything else that you need, don’t hesitate to ask me!

~lilymoore

This poem is amazing. I loved every bit of it. I actually read it aloud to myself twice, because I found it so beautiful. I love the theme of this piece, because everyone wishes to be perfect, but no can be. It almost made me cry. This is truly one of the best poems I have ever read. It's awesome, and your awesome. Keep up the good work.

Wow is probably the only word low enough to describe this. The highest word hasn't even been invented yet do I will invent it. The word is Fantabulisticatomicamazing . See that? if you didn't then your weird. The reason I like it is that it's dark and about the imperfectness and how people can mark you for it. It is easy to come across in these forums a lot. And in stories too. I like how the boy made his... feelings clear. The first paragragh was good when it described her but I didnt like it when it said "PERFECT" at the beginning. I knew how she felt in the second paragragh. With the searing tears you described it perfectly because when things happen (boy issues) its how the tears feel. the third paragragh was contrivirtual (did I spell that right?) to whether I like it, so I'm going to get back to you about that. Cool! I like the fourth paragragh a lot because of it's depth. the paragraghs leading up to the second to last add a thicker plot to the story/poem. the second to last paragragh was the best by far. the last I didn't like at all so just work on that. Well anyway thanks for the awesome poetry. Antidisastablishmentarianism. Goodbye!
-FireBreather

P.S. that's my actual nickname.

Every woman’s battle in society today, and you’ve managed to bring this broad topic down into such an inspiring piece of writing.
This piece is good, and there’s nothing bad I can say about it.

And just going back to this probably being the most overused topic, I don’t think we could ever get enough works on his topic. Thankyou for raising that issue and I hope everyone can learn from it.

Coral,

Everytime I log on to YWS nowadays (which is often) before I even check the featured works I'm postitve your work will be there. How right can I be? Your never not featured. Anyhow. On to the poem--->>

About the cliche thing, I dont think you could be more wrong. Your work is far from a cliche. Its orignal and unique and I've never read one of your poems that are the same which is quite an achivement.

Your imagery as always was too perfection and our words flowed evenly. Your description was amazing and well placed but when is it not? The only thing I would say about your work is that you sometimes go overboard with the description. Its good to have some simple and plain lines in poetry because thats just the way it is. Nothing is ever as flowery and descriptive as writers make it. On ther other hand though, I guess its our job XD I'd like to see you write a poem that wasn't as descriptive sometime. I'd be ineterested to see how it turns out. Again I'm not saying description is a bad thing it's a great thing. Just being overly nit-picky here.

The structure was good. Sometimes your sentences ran on a little long-they could have been broken into two but whatever.

Lastly, the title got on my nerves a bit. It should have a capital P. I'm weird like tha but these things are impoetant for us authors. )

Overall this is geniusly written and captures the heart and soul of every teenage and some women's problems.
Its obviously a close subject for you.
Keep writing and PM me if you decide to go with the 'plain and simple' idea. No worries though. )
Kaka xox

Hello there Coral!

First of all, I totally agree with the previous critiques. Though the theme has been used and read many times, I think the twist you added here is what makes this enjoying to read.

However, there are just some instances where the length of a line is longer than the others. I understand that this is some sort of a free-verse poetry, but still the meter and the wordiness distracts the flow.

She asked herself why it could not be how she wanted it, why it could not be like everyone wanted it, why her body wouldn’t listen to her heart, screaming at her to change, to find Perfect, to scratch herself apart and snatch it from underneath her skin.

Like this for example. Maybe this is just your style, but if we cut this and pasted it on a whole sheet of paper, it almost look like a paragraph. So I suggest breaking them into two or three, especially the phrases "wouldn't listen to her heart" and "screaming at her to change."

She was an untouchable,

I think you don't need "an" anymore since the adjective doesn't follow a noun.

Another thing I want to say is how you sometimes repeat words twice in a row. Though that's just a minor thing which has pretty covered up by lilymoore. This also leads to my second point and that is how you describe her "tears". There is an "ugly" tears and "white hot tears" (<-- that's a bit awkward to read btw). I don't know... maybe this is just me but you should slow it down, C. ^^

But anyways, I like how you started and ended the poem. This piece really conveys something powerful message to the readers. I also adore how you portray Perfect and the main girl here. ^^

Overall, thanks for the good read. This has been quite refreshing. And I hope you still see this helpful even though I'm not really good at reviewing poems. haha. Let me know if you have any questions.

Keep writing,
Yuri

Hi Coral! Here as requested, though there seem to be quite a few reviews before mine. I apologize in advance for any repetition.

Right off the bat, I want to tell you that this topic is very overused, though I have to say that I agree with the above reviews. You took a cliché, and you added your own twist to it to make it every bit as original as a whole new idea would be. Sometimes, you have to wonder if twisting a cliché isn't more creative than coming up with something shiny and new. In my opinion, what you did here takes a lot more work.

But anyways, there were a few things here and there that I wanted to point out. Onto the nit-picky stuff! (There probably won't be very many of these. The others did a good job of getting to those first.)

Persephoneia wrote:And that boy: he didn’t see it. He couldn’t see it, wouldn’t see it, would only watch her with
her tears and attempts at being “better”, and see an opportunity to get a pet,
and an opportunity to take someone over like a god

It was just the first line of this stanza that I wasn't too fond of. The repetition is obviously intentional, but I found it to be a little distracting. The other point I wanted to make was that there were a lot of 'see's' in this first bit. This may just be more of a personal preference, but I found it to be a little much.

Persephoneia wrote:But she-- she took their hate for her Bible, scripted words instilling fideistic sorrow
in her twisted face, made imperfect only by the hate for herself.

This is much more of a suggestion than anything. (And there's the fact that it might not work at all. It was just sort of an idea, and then somewhere in my mind, it did make sense. xD) But, I noticed that [especially in the beginning] you capitalized 'Perfection', and in doing so, personified it. Anyways, capitalizing 'Imperfect' might have the same effect? Like I said, I have no clue if that actually works or not, just sort of something that came to mind.

And... oh, well, that seems to be it. Everything else has been pointed out all ready.

So, now all I have to say is this:

This poem was incredible. As I mentioned earlier, and as everybody else seems to have mentioned, you took the over-used subject and turned it into something completely enjoyable. There were some people who didn't like the extremely long lines, but I actually... um... enjoyed them. That could just be me, though.

The other thing about this that I really liked was how you personified Perfect throughout the poem. It added a little something, an extra punch.

Thanks for the awesome read! You never fail to impress me. xD (Yes, I secretly stalk your poetry. But reviewing it was very much a pleasure! )

~~Cass

I love this poem. It is beautiful and simply eye opening. It addresses a topic that many girls, including me, have faced. i loved the imagery and the language you used. it made the poem feel ethereal and almost...mystically depressing at some times. i wish i could write a poem like this. it is truly amazing.