z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

I'm a slave(Edited)

by Casanova


her seven-sinned-whip still lashes across my chest 
shredding everything it touches 

her shackles still bind me 
every once in a while 
when she breaches the walls i've created 

the faint feeling of tobacco sticks
across my back 
punishment for  living 

i feel the hot iron piercing my skin 
the brand she left me 
punishment for not being good enough 

this bunk i lie on
still has the stain of blood
left from days before 
when i felt i wasn't good enough 

and when the night draws  near 
and she enters my mind 
i scream to the heavens once again 

i'm a slave 

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117 Reviews

Points: 6987
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Thu Dec 29, 2016 9:03 pm
JosephGeorge wrote a review...



Hey Matt, here for another Review Day review,

Positives:Wow, this is intense. I was kind of feeling that it might be a little too over the top, but then I remembered that you're writing from the perspective of a slave, whoever they are, and that's not exactly a cake walk in the park. The tone fits the topic, to say the least.

her seven-sinned-whip still lashes across my chest
shredding everything it touches


I really like the imagery of this "seven-sinned-whip," it's a small flare, but it has a big difference in whether or not this is true poetry, or just words claiming to be a poem. It builds an interesting layer here that adds some great depth to this poem, opening up more than just a physical pain.

Unfortunately, you don't do anything else like this for the rest of the poem, so it just kind of flops, in a manner of speaking. It's like a great wind up, and then you throw a seventy-five MPH slow ball right over the plate. It was a little disappointing, but I get the feeling you didn't put a ton of work into this one?

Negatives:Except for my comment above, the only other thing I would point out that hasn't already been said is the punctuation. It always kills me to see a piece downgraded simply because there's no capitalization or periods or commas. But that's an easy fix.

I give it:
ImageImageImage


Joseph Henry George




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Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:10 am
Mea wrote a review...



This is good. Very cohesive, with strong imagery, and definitely miles better than the edited version. But I've already told you a few of the things I think you could do to make this even better, and let me explain a little more.

Cut, and trade weak verbs for more powerful language. Those are my two biggest pieces of advice. You don't need to cut actual stanzas or even actual lines. It's more a matter of taking out the filler words, writing with nouns and verbs and being a little more concise in your phrasing. This piece should be a gut punch, not a melodic, slow concerto.

her seven-sinned-whip still lashes across my chest
shredding everything it touches

I already told you I like the first line a lot. The second doesn't sell me. It just doesn't expand on the first in an interesting way, or a way we couldn't have guessed. I'd either delete it altogether and let your first line stand on its own, *or* trade 'everything' for something a lot more specific, perhaps a good piece of body-related imagery.

her shackles still bind me
every once in a while
when she breaches the walls i've created

I don't feel 'every once in a while' has enough substance to merit it's own line. There's room to expand here. When does this happen? At night, when the narrator is tired? In the morning when they're just getting up? More specifics would make it more powerful - when and why do these thoughts overtake the narrator? Also, "created" is a plain and unemotional word that could be punched up.

the faint feeling of tobacco sticks
across my back
punishment for living

This stanza's a little strange because the rest of them are all sentences, with a subject and a verb, but this one would be a sentence fragment. It threw me off - I don't think it fits with the rest of the poem. But I love the image of tobacco sticks, I just think you need to throw a verb somewhere in there.

this bunk i lie on
still has the stain of blood
left from days before
when i felt i wasn't good enough

I like this stanza, but again, 'has' as a verb is weak. 'Carries' would be better, or something else you can think of.

My other biggest complaint is that "good enough" is just vague. What were the perceived failures? What did the narrator accuse himself of failing at? I really think the heart of the poem could be here if you dug into this and expanded it, especially because it's ripe for more slavery connections. We all know the feeling of not being good enough, but we all feel we're failing at different things. Dig in and expand.

And that's all I've got - I hope this helped!




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Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:50 pm
Virgil wrote a review...



This is Kaos here for a review!

So I see this is the edited version of your other work, and I have to say, it's a lot improved. I like to see you experimenting with everything and I think that kind of shines here. The end of the poem didn't really do anything for me which is something that I wanted to touch on now. It lacked emotional weight because it was so blunt compared to the rest of the poem and it didn't really work.

Your use of wording is something that's a strength in the poem and I have to commend you on that, but I think that punctuation would make it stronger. This poem works well with no capitalization running through it but it would do good with punctuation even if it's as small as commas because it really does make the difference on how a poem is read or perceived.

The imagery in this poem is something that I actually enjoy but I would like you to expand on some things. The first two lines don't do anything to me in terms of imagery because they kind of lack emotional impact, but the images that are left in my mind are the ones of branding. I want more sensory detail with the heat and everything of that sort. Something that I feel would add to the poem is that the speaker isn't really a slave to "her" but a slave to her memory and all the things relating to her like her perfume or the clothes she wore or the books she liked.

That kind of comes off the original trail of the poem but I think it would benefit from this route if you chose to take it. Something that I appreciated is the consistency of the imagery and how it doesn't jump around too much? Tying the stanzas together just a tiny bit more to cohesiveness is something that I suggest. Focus on your wording to do this because it's one of the strengths in this poem. Keep editing and experimenting with this because I think you've found a road of concrete.

I hope I helped and have a great day!





The words you speak become the house you live in.
— Hafiz