They told me my father didn't love me.
They were wrong.
All those broken years, I thought he had abandoned us,
When he was fighting so hard to get back into our lives.
They told me my grandmother would take us away,
And she did, in a sense.
But I'm glad of it.
My life was broken pottery,
And she repaired it,
Making seams of molten gold.
They told me my differences were bad,
That I was any number of unspeakable things.
Now I'm proud to be red in a sea of blue
And I’m learning to call myself smart,
Where before, my name may as well have been stupid.
They told me my sister could do no wrong,
And this had the opposite effect,
Making me berate her at every turn.
It's still hard to look past the old days,
When she was an angel from the realms of glory,
And I was a rotten piece of fruit--
But it was never her fault, or mine.
They told me everything, but gave me nothing--
I'll never believe their lies again.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hello, hello, gxldencrxwns here for a review.
The honesty and rawness in this poem is great. You can hear the pain and hurt pain from past experiences through the words you chose. I enjoy you chose simple words and didn't try extremely hard to go above and beyond with your sentences, and in the end that's what they were.
I myself cannot relate to anything that's happening in this poem, but I have a best friend who is. It makes me comforted because she's not the only one struggling. But please don't take offense to that, it wasn't my intention.
I saw no spelling or grammar mistakes, so good job on that. I'm assuming this is free verse because there's no rhyming, but I won't harp on you for it, because this is very personal.
Keep writing! You have talent!
~gxldencrxwns
This work encapsulates all of the personal hurtful experiences that you've been through, and you did a really good job of writing them out. It could have just been a poem about gloom and despair but you also include moments of upliftment and betterment in some places like how you learned your worth and how your grandmother fixed the broken you. A sharp eye can tell this is out of real life and really personal experiences even without you mentioning it because your poem does not follow any linear trajectory of sorrow, upliftment, and then joy but circles around all of these things; that's how life is. I am sure writing helped you in some way or the other to deal with the world outside and inside. It will surely help others feel that they are not alone. Thanks for bringing out yourself raw onto the written word, not everybody's got that kind of courage. Keep writing.
This is an honest piece of work and literature at any form oughts to be first and foremost honest and true. I like the fact that you use simple everyday words to express strong bonds such as family bonds are. It is a mature piece of work expressing deep emotions through a simple point of view. It is easy to understand and the reader can easily relate to it. I like the way you express about the sister since it is kind and loving but also reveals some kind of sweet grievance towards her which is a really good contradiction.
Keep it up!
This is an honest piece of work and literature at any form oughts to be first and foremost honest and true. I like the fact that you use simple everyday words to express strong bonds such as family bonds are. It is a mature piece of work expressing deep emotions through a simple point of view. It is easy to understand and the reader can easily relate to it. I like the way you express about the sister since it is kind and loving but also reveals some kind of sweet grievance towards her which is a really good contradiction.
Keep it up!
I find that I relate very closely to parts of this. The beginning. The lies. The father. The sister.
From my perception of this poem, it seems like the family/another unnamed figure of authority (perhaps the mother) has lied to the narrator and made them believe that the father was no good and did no care about his children- that they would never see him again. This, I relate to because my parents divorced when I was 9- after she remarried, her husband wanted to BE my father. And it wasn't meant in a good way, rather in a controlling way. They made me believe that my father was a no good drug addict and I could not live with him even if I wanted to. They told me that he lived on the streets and that I might as well give up on him, while simultaneously hiding the child support money from us and spending it on themselves. I relate to this.
The narrator speaks of berating their sister, however I have been berated over things of little importance, and it hurts to feel like you aren't even good enough for your own brother/sister. It's a form of rejection and you feel all alone.
At least this is how I'm interpreting this. I love the fact that grandma was there to help, that grandma was the savior. It brings me joy to know that there is someone who is playing the role of silver lining, and the metamorphosis of feeling alone and different to accepting your inner self and going with the flow.
However, if I were to criticize, I'd like to see a further description of how they were different. How they had an inner inkling of the lies that "they told me" and their inner resolution to never believe the words they were told.
Though I may just be reading too much into it. It's a short poem, but you could benefit from elongating and elaborating.
Thanks for listening, though you don't have to take my advice!
-Pan