Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
A/N: This was supposed to be a short story. Turned into a poem..
A knife pierces skin.
Don’t stop.
Screaming of people from the outside.
Ignore, ignore.
Banging on the door.
Don’t look up.
Blood falling, falling.
No one cares.
Tears fall down.
Look, you’re getting your nice shirt wet.
Room spinning.
This is not that bad.
Knife hit floor with clink.
Pick it back up, continue.
Eyes droop.
Listen to me.
Leans over, picks the handle up.
Pain only lasts for a bit.
Stinging on cheek.
Do it on your wrist.
Moves knife to skin.
Higher up, upper arm.
Knife slices once more.
Excellent, perfect, pain, yes.
Door opens.
Hide the knife, now.
Yelling is heard.
Defend, yell back.
Mouth stays shut.
Smack her in the face.
More tears fall.
Listen.
Shows blade to intruder.
Listen to to me, not her
Confesses to person.
Glance at the look of disgust, now.
Sobs from both in room.
Weakling.
She gets up and leaves.
No one loves you.
Goes to put knife away.
Stop.
Obeys.
Continue.
Stands still.
Now.
Slices wrist.
Listen to me, don’t stray.
Blood drips again.
Stop, listen to the world.
Door opens again.
Drop knife and run away, do it.
Is yelled at.
Kill her.
No control.
I’m controlling you.
Moves forward.
Obey my commands.
Listens to voice.
Aim for chest.
Knife goes through intruder’s shirt.
Listen to your sister’s screams.
Listening.
Dead, she is dead, good job.
Takes knife out of body that is now on floor.
Continue.
A knife pierces skin…
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,836 Reviews
Hey sis! Writer here for a review
Why do you write like this >.< 
This poem is so troubling
Okay, so
I will say this. The format of the poem adds nicely to the poem, because it reminds me of a rocky, shaky beat. That fits, because someone is cutting
Hmm, however, like Pomp said, it gets a little boring and feels drawn out. The content, of course, is a huge attention grabber, but this feels so...robotic. Yes, there's some voice controlling this person, so half of the time the speaker is somewhat a robot. But the parts that aren't in italics feel so robotic, which I don't think was your intention.
The flow could be worked on, and I'll point out where in a minute.
Slightly cliche. I want you to create originality in this piece, because, for the most part, this is a very original poem. Think of different ways a knife makes contact with the skin. Then, try and create some imagery when you imagine it. Give us imagery that will make us cringe, make us bite our lips as we continue to read. I think the opening line was a bit poor for such a strong poem. Give us more feeling in that opening line, so we continue reading
What? This line doesn't read right to me.
Again with the emotions... there isn't any feeling here.
Screaming comes from the outside is a start to fixing the line
I can slightly understand why you don't have a linking verb here, because of how the speaker is probably thinking at this point...but really, is should be added here
What is stinging on the cheek? Tears? Blood?
Hmm, what do you mean here? I thought the world didn't like the speaker... why would the voice have the speaker stop and listen to the world?
Two things here. First off, I don’t feel that “through” is a good enough visual for us readers. We want imagery that gives us raw emotions. I think words like “thrust,” “plunge,” or “drive” would give us a visual. Even a simple word change can give us a large visual of what you’re saying. Second, the word “intruder” feels too formal. This person may seem as an intruder to the speaker, but I just think it feels out of place in the word choice of the rest of the poem.
Here, the repetition of “dead, she is dead” seems very dull and pointless. Why say “dead, she is dead” when you can just say “She is dead. Well done.” I would hear that more in my voice then a dull repetition. But it’s up to you
Hmm, I don’t the ellipses is necessary here. I mean, the line itself is powerful enough
The poem is so sad
Timmy here!
Yes, I am going to attempt the impossible. And that is adding something onto an already perfect review of your work here. Pompadour hasn't left much for me to do, so I will merely try to give this my own twist--if that is even possible.
When I read this, I wasn't think of a poem. I was thinking it was more of a condensed short story with a lot of thought intertwined into it. I am going to pull out this sentence, and show you what I mean. One sentence--or rather one line--and I will talk about it.
Okay, this is a sentence, right? A complete idea. Well, isolate is from this poem and what do you have? When I think of poetry, and what makes up poetry, I think of two things. 1) Either the poem in itself is "poetic" and the message inside the words makes it poetry. A flowing message or whatnot, or 2) the words inside the poem are in themselves poetic and flowing, either with a rhyming scheme or are just used in such a way that they are just poetic. If you isolate one sentence in the poem, and you don't get either of those two feelings, then there may need to be a little bit of tweaking to get it poetic. Otherwise, its merely a short story in poem format--which is fine, but not what you really intended, I think. I did an essay once in poem format, and while everyone liked it, it wasn't really poetic and didn't have a poetic meaning behind it. So, yeah.
So let's take this same sentence and see what we can do with it. A knife pierces skin. Okay, you have an action and a description you could implement. The knife could be brought out and describe in such a way so that its haunting, disgusting, terrifying--even enticing if you really want to go that far, although that would be strange. Playing with your reader's emotions is always a powerful ally when doing these things.
Then you have the action. You say the knife pierces the skin, eh? Well, that is a good word, but it's used quite a bit in story's/poems, so maybe its not the right word. Look for something powerful, electrifying. Hint! You can always right click and check synonyms. I know it may sound like cheating, but its really easy to find another word that makes the action so much more powerful.
Here, I am going to touch on imagery. You mention the falling, and the repetition of that word is really powerful and almost haunting, like an echo of the word before, but its missing something. What it is missing is an image. Like what happens when the blood hits the floor? What does it do? Does it congeal into a single blob that just lies beneath your feet, or does it splatter all over the place--including your feet and legs, making an uneven pattern of crimson over the entire area [insert gory description here]? You need to give us an image of what it looks like, and then leave us with that--something our minds can put together to create a vivid image, one we can decode. You don't have to fill the lines with useless imagery, and make your poem one long description, but make sure that... Erm, this is going to sound very morbid for a poem like this, but make sure its juicy and vivid. Without that, you are leaving your readers blind.
Okay, when I read this poem, I got the feeling of someone being blank over it. No emotions flooding through the person. That is fine, and can be a good thing, but its very hard to give your readers something to feel if your character isn't feeling it either. Making your reader feel is one of the most important elements in writing poetry. Perhaps the most important, actually. And the best way to do that is by having your character feel something. So add in something, perhaps some blankness, even. If your character isn't going to feel anything, then have them look at the blood on their hands--not their own, but their sister's. Make them feel nothing, or perhaps a whimsical feeling of regret, and then that feeling of nonchalance where your character realizes they feel nothing at all. Not even the feeling of sick triumph or pleasure at the murder, which is truly evil, but many people do have that.
All in all, I thought this was very well done. I liked the haunting voice throughout, that voice that goaded them to do everything. Something that seemed a part of them, but then nott... I don't know how to describe it, really. But I think you did an amazing job building the voice and showing the complete control over the character. Complete control. Almost like a robot, and it was so... electrifying and haunting, I dunno. It was creepy and truly amazing how you could make the voice seem so real.
Great job. Keep it up! Hopefully this review wasn't harsh or mean?
~Darth Timmyjake
Hey, Raven! Pompadour here for a quick review on your poem! This is going to be pretty short, but bear with me and I'll try to be as thorough as possible, okay?
Alright, so the first thing I thought when I started reading was that the way you wrote and formatted this was pretty interesting and, initially, the jarring beat was also what drew me into the poem. But as I read on I sort of started to lose focus and had to read through some of the lines twice since things happened in such quick succession. The beginning, I felt, had a very strong sense of purpose, but that purpose was lost as we progressed, along with the feeling and the seething emotion that was conveyed--however briefly--through the first few lines. While it was nice to be able to see the inner battle/struggle that the narrator is going through, I think you could have created more of a connection with the reader as you wrote, so it isn't just like flipping through a deck of cards with barely a glance. You could do this by adding in a little bit of imagery, or going a little slower with what you have to say. I liked that this carried this aura of a story--like a narrative poem?--and was also hard-hitting. The twist nearing the end was also nice.
One thing that I think your poem could use is added strength. Added emotion. I would also suggest breaking it up since that would make it easier to read, and it would also feel less blocky or in clumps that way. The way you expressed yourself was short and snappy, but I'd like to see you play with this idea, put an added spin on things. Like, when the narrator is giving into the desire--yeuch, the word doesn't befit his/her actions--you could go all for sparse sentences; but when they're fighting against it, you could employ some more poetic-ness, some more imagery and detail. Like, nearing the middle, I felt as if the poem was getting pretty fly-away and scattered, since there was so much going on. It was very vague--especially the "No one loves you" part, and I feel as if it could be elaborated upon, and turned into something more powerful.
Anywhoo, I'd advise you to experiment with this idea, since you've got a good story arc going, and both the beginning and the ending were haunting in their own way. Try slam-poetry, free verse, or whatever suits your style! Try seeing how many different ways you can write a verse; play with scene, with action, try pulling in several things at one time! Ask yourself questions, like: What is this voice? How is it influencing the narrator? How strong is it? How long has this been going on and can the narrator fight against it? Questioning always helps, broadening your mind and shtuff. So do it.
Overall, this was a great piece, Rav, and has a lot of potential! I love how you manage to send tingles itching down your reader's spine and how you begin and end on such powerful notes. So keep writing! Keep it up!
Also, aren't you a little young to be writing 16+ poetry, hrm? XDHope this helped!
Cheers,
~Pompadour
"Short".
Your reviews are always so good, Dory. And this wasn't short.
<3 Thank you.
Hello, RavenMoonStone! Nice to see my old follow friend!
Okay, you normally don't say things repeated in 16+ poems. Maybe do: "Ignore the noise."
"Ignore, ignore."
The ending was a bit sad, though, and I think this should be categorized as Horror, it certainly fits with the knife and all. Two questions, some praise: Did you follow me? Anyways, you're amazing at poetry, I have a book of poems, and a book of Maya Angelou. Would you like some poems? If you do, then keep livin' in the Green Room!
-wisegirl22
Why can't you repeat things in 16 poems? As far as technicality goes, it's the same as a 12 or 10 poem
It's a bit...weird.