The Same Old Thing

I wasn't sure where to post this, since it's not exactly fiction...
It's something I wrote to help me with...some things. I don't know. But it's something that happened in my life a couple years ago, and I want to improve it before I show a certain someone. I don't have much practice with more...poetic writings, so I thought I'd get some critiques here.
It's rated 12+ solely for subject content.

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The room was dark.

Pitch black save for the cold moonlight pouring in from the sliding glass doors.
A sunlight basement sapped of all the warmth the sun brings.
A girl stood alone in one corner, no older than 15, glancing around.

She knew this place.

Her breath quickened as she heard the familiar footsteps sneaking down the stairs.
The door swung open quietly, the man leading the young girl by her wrist into the room.
“Here we go again,” the girl in the corner thought to herself.

She began to cry out to the other girl, also 15.

“No,” she croaked, her dry throat protesting. “Please not again.”
But she knew it wouldn’t matter.

It was the same every time.

The pair continued on as if they hadn’t heard her. As if she were invisible.
He led the girl to the bed. His stubbly face caught the light, and his age was revealed.
The invisible girl began to hyperventilate.
“No!” She screamed.
The other girl lowered herself to sit on the bed. Her entire being seemed to exude anxiety.
“Why do you keep doing this?!” The girl in the corner sobbed. “Why do you keep hurting yourself like this?!”

The man sat down beside his victim on the bed.

“Why do you keep hurting me like this?” The invisible girl whimpered.
The man began to speak. His voice was high and reedy, although he spoke in whispers.
“Why are you crying?” He asked the girl on the bed beside him, as he stroked her cheek.
“I wish it wasn’t you,” she sniffed softly.
Something shifted in his expression, if only for a fraction of a second.
He looked like a small child who paused as he wrote on the walls, wondering if what he was doing was wrong.

But as soon as it had come, it flashed away.

Replaced by an unreadable expression, as he lifted her shirt over her head.
“NO!” The invisible girl shrieked. “Stop! Please!” She gripped the sides of her shirt in anguish.
The girl on the bed laid back slowly, sighing softly in a resigned way.

He followed her.

“NO NO PLEASE!” The girl in the corner fell to her knees, sobbing, clutching her sides, trying to hold at least a fraction of herself together. Her forehead hit the floor with a soft thump as she sobbed loudly into the carpet.


She sat up in bed quickly, a rasping gasp sucking in the morning air. The invisible girl was no longer invisible. She was awake. Drenched in a mixture of tears and sweat, she breathed heavily for a moment before flinging her head off the side of her bed, her empty stomach heaving uselessly and painfully into the bucket she always kept there.
After she’d finished, she took a deep, rattling breath.

“Time to start another day.”

Hi.

KerushiiAi wrote:A sunlight basement sapped of all the warmth the sun brings.

I believe it should be A sunlit basement zapped all of the warmth the sun brings.

It's very good as is, so I don't know what else to tell you. I think that the ending is too nice. I don't like she just gets up and goes on with her day. At the same time, I understand that this is a reoccurring dream and that she has learned maybe to just push it aside and get on with her life. So, there's a reason to change it and a reason not to. It's ultimately up to you.

--McMourning

Hello, there

I'm going to have to first disagree with the above reviewer about the first line. It is unconventional, but it grabbed my attention, and I really like the sound of it.

I might also suggest changing the format of this and putting this in one of the fiction forums, because it reads more like a short story than a poem to me.

That said, this was a beautiful and harrowing piece of writing. I was so in the shoes of your character, while reading this. Her fear and terror was conveyed very well. I do think your ending was a bit weak, however. It's not that bad, but it could be improved.

Also, I was a bit confused about the invisible girl, and the other girl being violated. I get the feeling that they are the same person, but I had trouble understanding the purpose of doing that, and why it changed in the end.

Overall I liked it quite a lot, and hope to see more of your writing

Yeah, I didn't really like the ending of it much myself either >_> That's one of the things I wanted to improve on, I'm just not exactly sure how...

To clarify, the invisible girl and the girl being violated actually are two different people. So that's why it's done that way xD if it makes more sense now.
It's a bit of a tricky situation to explain...

And yes, it's written more like a short story...but I didn't notice a nonfiction section, and poetry can be nonfiction so that's why I put it here, in the "other poetry" section.

A sunlight basement sapped of all the warmth the sun brings.

I do see how it sounds awkward, but a "sunlight basement" is what they call those basements that are only partially underground, like when a house is built into the side of a hill, as is the case here. And I was trying to say how the sun brings warmth into sunlight basements, not that the basement was actually lit by sunlight at the time, because as mentioned in the previous line, it's nighttime. Do you understand it now?

Ok, so I'll try to work on that ending...thanks, both of you