Fooling around with toy guns
with bullets of not-so-soft plastic
was fun until, in the thrill,
I shot my brother in the ear
and though he winced
his hand pressed to his ear
his eyes closed -
he said it wasn't much.
We walked home quietly, and I
kept biting my fingernails
thinking now, of how
he hadn't aimed at me
not even in play.
That was my first night
spent awake
in guilt's cold embrace. I tried
burying my face in a pillow, but
I couldn't sleep.
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140,327 Literary Works • 673,107 Reviews
Hello,
I really like the idea of it, but I think you could add a few things into the mix for a more complete thought. This poem captures a specific moment, and so it’d be best to make your imagery as sharp as possible. Leave the reader with a crisp mental picture of what the poem describes.
As for punctuation, I think this could use a little more here and there, but it’s really a stylistic thing and your poetry tends to be pretty on-purpose about it anyways.
Minor thing, but the repetition of “with” threw me off a bit.
Vague - consider rewording?
Curious: walked home from where? This was the only indication of a setting.
Good imagery.
Unless I’m missing something, I don’t quite understand the purpose of the “now,”.
I like this metaphor to the point that I think that expanding on it would enhance it. You talk about sleeping/pillow etc., maybe you could continue with the “cold” sensory and include something about there not being enough blankets to keep you warm from “guilt’s cold embrace”? Just a thought.
The comma isn’t really necessary here.
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I think the third paragraph - especially the last two lines - are the most poignant and seem like the main idea of the poem. Suggestion: maybe characterize the brother a little more to really show the contrast between him and the narrator.
- Indie
I kinda liked this. I especially liked the aspects of guilt, sorrow, and sadness. It's really interesting to think about, how something that, in retrospect, is not that big of a deal, can eat away at you like that. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt-- or, well, you get shot in the teeth and your friends sit you up and laugh at you. That's fun too. But yeah, I really enjoyed the poem. There's also no grammatical/spelling errors that I found, so good job on that as well. Strangely enough, the poem made me want to yell at these people for not wearing safety equipment!
~Cirute
hey
all I have to say is wow this is amazing, you have get techniques. everything in this poem means something. you have hurt, sadness in the poem with I love. many poems don't really use the techniques that you have which is why I think you poem is great so keep it up if you get negative posts don't worry about them you've done great keep it up hope to read some more this year
wow, i can understand that even sometimes in fun and games people can get hurt and it pains much more when your having fun and someone you love gets hurt and they say its nothing but the thought that you caused them pain lingers in your head and even keeps you up at night. even i have younger siblings and when they feel pain that i have caused makes me feel so guilty.
this is really good i dont know if it was your older brother or younger brother but either way the feelings are the same.