Published July 18, 2010
A/N: I went back and fixed the typo's and tweaked based on the critiques I recieved. Thank you all. This took way too long for me to do, but I needed to be in a special mood for this particular piece.
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This burden...
This guilt...
This heavy chain latches onto my ankle and binds me to this fear. My once beautiful feathers are tattered, torn, useless. My golden glow has diminished into nothingness.
The chilling wind breaks my bones and tears my skin and chills my blood. The man on the moon leers down at me: he laughs at me!
I curse him!
Leave me be!
Leave me, fiend, so that I may torment myself in solitude.
I sit and wait. All I know is fear and guilt. Even the ocean waves mock me as they beat the shore miles below me in time with my jagged breath. My heart explodes in my chest, not so silently begging me to confess my damnation. To rid myself of these chains of burden and guilt.
I am afraid, though. I am scared. What will happen to me?
I can't deal with this! I can't handle with this pressure, this pain, on my chest. It threatens to collapse onto my heart. Anything is better than this aching emptiness inside me.
I step to the edge of the cliff and the salt of the ocean slaps me in the face. The chain on my ankle tugs at my foot, telling me to come back, whispering demonic words that will surely kill me.
I flex my wings; spread them out. It hurts. My feathers are bent and broken. Blood drips from gaping wounds and stains the feathers like beautiful red flowers.
I reach out into nothingness. There is nothing there but I can feel elation and love clinging to my fingers as the wind swirls through them. Someone out there is calling to me, beckoning that I trust my faith and my wings. They are destroyed, but something tells me that they can be restored.
A laugh escapes me. Of course. It's all about faith. I step back. I want a running start.
Now go! Run! Run! Leap! I feel elation as I abandon fear and embrace faith. I spread my wings and I realize I can fly. I am free to fly anywhere in my faith. My faith is what holds me up, keeps me going. Even when there seems to be nothing left, I can be free and live by my faith.
After all, there's more to living than being alive.
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141,381 Literary Works • 674,386 Reviews
This is a good story you have an interesting writing style. It's different sets you apart from other writers.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much guys! : ) I've never had so many people try to help me in so little time.
This is an older piece that I felt like sharing first.
Thanks for all the help!
Soda, yes, it is a lyric. Anberlin says it in one of their songs, I'm not sure which one anymore, though. I'm sure lots of people use it though.
Night Owl, as for the backstory, I didn't want one. I wrote this when I was going though really hard times in my life. I was just getting back into church and I just wasn't sure what God wanted me to do. I showed this to my Pastor and he advised that I not use as much details, because he said that even he could relate to it. He said that too much backstory and detail would make it 'less personal to the individual.' Because the man didn't have a backstory, my Pastor could fit his particular story into this. But I might go back and add maybe a bit more to it.
Jet, yes it was supposed to be 'it.' And I'll try to work on unique desctiptions. I also didn't know what to name it, the title was a whim.
Once again, thank you all so much for the help. It means a lot to me.
~Chryssa
Hi, Chryssa, and welcome to YWS. I haven't much to say that Night Owl and Soda didn't cover, so I'll just repeat a bit. I suppose it's always worth getting a second opinion.
First, you overuse ellipses. Try to extend your sentences rather than relying on them for dramatic effect. It only works once, if that, within one piece of writing. For example, here:
There is absolutely no need for the ellipsis. Just cut the "is" (which should probably be an "it" here) and combine the sentence.
At the beginning, too, your sentences would probably have far more impact if you were to use full stops rather than ellipses. Ellipses tend to soften a sentence so that it trails off at the end, rather than allowing it to have the full sharp resonance of a complete short sentence.
This seemed almost sceptical. I don't think it's intentional, if I'm interpreting the idea of this piece as you wanted the reader to, so I'd cut the "of course".
This is very short, so that's probably all I can say on the critique front. As a side note, I'd have liked to see some more unique descriptions here. The images you use are effective, but they're a little overdone. And also, I think the title is a bit bland. You could probably come up with something more colourful and thought-provoking to fit.
As a whole, though, I liked this. I had to think about what I was reading and actually consider the story, which I don't do very often because I skim read. The length is fitting for the message and I like the way you've tried to get it across. I hope to see some more of your writing around here in future.
- Jet.
This was interesting. I can't say that I understand the premise, but I see what you're getting at. I think you could even elaborate if you wanted to and create more of a back-story to explain the guilt and damnation that you keep mentioning. If you're going for mystery, though, you've done a great job. Just a couple of nitpicks.
I assume you meant "shore." That's probably a typo.
Because the style of writing previous to this was very serious and somber, this seems a little informal. Maybe find a way to rephrase this so the tone and style remain consistent.
Hey Chryssa2305!
Let me welcome you to YWS! This is a really awesome website(:
Anyways, onwards to your review
This piece is nice, I find myself telling people all the time that they need more details in their stories, but in this particular one, I feel like the lack of details is what makes the piece. But your sentences are short and choppy, a few compound/complex sentences wouldn't hurt! Also, you have lots of ellipses in this piece, WAYY too many. The beginning two are okay, but all the rest after that are unnecessary.
I love that last line! I feel like its a lyric from somewhere, I just can't put my finger on it. But then again, it is a commonly used phrase (not that it's a bad thing!) so it's probably not from the same place I'm thinking of.
PM me if you have any questions!!
-SodapopLunchbox