How Can I Help You

Carly's corner:

"I grew up as a weird kid.
Didn't do the things that the other girls did.
Dressed as Buzz Lightyear for Hallowe'en,
never saw myself as a Disney queen."

I must say, this was my favourite line. as a reviewer before me earlier stated, writing about depression is not an easy stuff to write about. I really do not have so much corrections to make, as I earnestly enjoyed your work. It was more in a poetry format than song though, but still it was strong and superb.

Oh! I noticed the mood of the poem started dropping at a point. it initially had imagery, very clear. But it seemed like along the line, you were struggling to keep the piece together and maintain the beautiful way you had initially started off.

overall;
I like the worked, I actually copied it and shared to my friend, oh, still crediting you and ask him to come here and see really intriguing talents, such as yours..
xo: carlizee

Hey there! Luata here for a review. I'm a bit groggy (as it's still kind of early in the morning) so please bear with me if I start rambling. I'll admit, your description of this work pulled me in a bit, and I was rather curious. So if I judge your work rather harshly, it's mostly because mental illness is a tough thing to write about and I'm soooooo tired of seeing people using cutting and suicide and stuff as plot points instead of treating them like the important issue that they are (and perhaps doing thorough research before writing about said mental illnesses). Anyway ... onward and upward with the review!!

First Impression

As someone who doesn't really write lyrics (and one would think I could, since I write poetry, but for some reason ... just can't!), I'm judging this more as a poetry piece. I'm sorry if that's not as helpful, but I think I can still get an idea of the rhythm and the measure of your lines to see if it might sound good set to music? I hope it's vaguely useful.

Anyway, I really liked this piece and it sort of surprised me that I did. You pack a lot of emotion into this piece and as someone with a mental illness and also as someone who has watched other people suffer through a mental illness, I could really associate and empathize with this piece, which of course, is extremely important to any piece and that piece finding a readership. The thing that I really liked about it was mostly the emotion you conveyed. I agree with you in saying that some of your rhymes feel sort of forced and your ending is a bit sudden, but I'll address that later in the review.

As a first impression, I just really liked this piece. It struck me as something that could be both emotional and educational for those with and without a mental illness. For those without, showing that that those with a mental illness just need their love and support and for those with a mental illness; it encourages them to seek out help, showing them that someone cares. I think that's pretty powerful.

Grammar

I'm not really the best to judge grammar (as I make a lot of mistakes, so I'm still working on that myself), but I'll give it my best shot. I'll probably miss some stuff.

And all aroung me symptoms got worse.

It was like I walked around with a curse

And all aroung me symptoms got worse.

But all that doctor did was insist

That she was faking it.

I know I can't know for sure

But I bet my friend was put down as cured.

Your hell is the worst that I have ever seen.

I need to help it not to be.

First and foremost, I don't know how much of this is based or inspired by true events or if it was all fabricated and I'm not going to assume either, either way, thank you for sharing.

Now I'm just going to list all of my critiques:

I. "How can I help you?/Is there anything I can do?/ You're suffocating in your nightmare/ And I don't know how to pull you through."

1. Now, you're gonna hate me for how petty this first one, but you should take out you in "How can I help you?". I know it's small, but I think it really improves the flow of that stanza as is.

2. I would also see about changing the line "You're suffocating in your nightmare" to something more brutal. Now I'm terrible with rhymes so I can't really suggest something that'd actually work with the stanza, however, my point is I just feel this line should be something that really paints the picture of what these people are going through. I feel this isn't just a simple nightmare, it's far more deadly than that. Nightmares may be scary, but you always wake up from them. I would say this type of situation isn't a nightmare, it's a circle of hell unique to all those who have to live in it. If I'm sounding like a mad man to you and you want to keep the line, I would at least suggest changing the word suffocating to something with a bit more venom, like strangling.

II. "Another friend tried to kill herself/And I'm terrified you will as well./Your hell is the worst that I have ever seen./ I need to help it not to be."

1. You should really change as well in "And I'm terrified you will as well." into "And I'm terrified you will too." Makes that line way, way less clunky and flow much better.

2. I would elaborate more onto how this other friend tried to kill themselves, paint the picture. I think this would help in expressing to the reader why exactly this person is so worried about whoever they're talking about. Maybe have a line that talks about the early signs that they saw in this other friend that they're now seeing in this person. Maybe they're eating less, they stay in their room all the time. Maybe the person speaking found some old draft of a suicide note they wrote. Just something to help us get a better picture of these people's story and allow the reader to be more invested.

3. That last line "I need to help it not to be." really needs to change. It just kinda kills the flow and it feels forced. Maybe think about something like "And I can't help but be burning in it too." Something that connects from the previous line "Your hell is the worst I've ever seen." that shows that this person's pain is affecting the speaker just as much as it is to them.

4. Really petty critique again, I'd take out the period in "Your hell is the worst I've ever seen." It just stops the line where I think it really shouldn't, I feel that stanza is just spoken like vomit, just spitting out to whoever they're speaking to because they're so worried.

III. "I'm sorry if I pester you./ I'm grasping for what else to do./ I know he says I stretch myself/But I'm fine so it's my duty to help."

1. The two lines "I know he says I stretch myself/But I'm fine so it's my duty to help." are really awkward and, in the case of the first line mentioned especially, too vague for me. Who's "he"? Was he ever mentioned before? Is it their father, brother, boy friend, husband? I would see about elaborating on that in future drafts or simply taking it out. The whole point of that line is to show the audience that there is some part of this speaker that feels she can't possibly help everyone, despite desperately wanting to do so especially for the ones they love. So I'd see about changing it to something like "I know it's not my problem/But my problem is that I love you." Or something else in that vein that especially connects with the first two lines.

IV. "It tore me in two that I didn't know the answer."

1. This line especially needs to be elaborated on. I don't think I need to explain to you, or anyone else who's gone through it, not knowing what to say to someone in deep mental anguish is the most awkward experience ever. It's terrible, awful, makes you feel so useless. I would strongly encourage painting that picture. Maybe have some lines like "I sat there on her bed/ hardly knowing what to say/ She cried and cried and cried/ and all I could do was blink." That's awful, but you get the idea.

2. More concerning about the line itself, I would try to choose some different words to make it more visual and also just flow better. Maybe say something like how you feel like an atom splitting into two. Make the visual something ground breaking, destructive to paint the picture that this speaker is very much being destroyed by their uncertainty on what to do or even to say.

V. General Notes

1. Overall, this is a solid draft and I know with some extra work it can be a great poem. The ideas are there, the only thing this piece needs more than anything else is imagery and scenes. When I read this poem, the image that always pops into my head is a picture book of these people all going through the hardest parts of their life. The feeling is there, I can tell by just looking at it, all it needs is more development into the specific situations the speaker has witnessed.

2. Kind of an odd note, but it may lead to something interesting. As I kept reading the poem for this review, I thought "Wouldn't it be interesting if the speaker was the parents of a child going through this?" I mean just think of it. I know we tend to focus the subject of depression and suicide on the people actually going through it and their friends, which is absolutely fine, but imagine the pain a parent must feel. Their own flesh and blood are going through this huge, traumatic, life changing process that could very well end their lives and they have no idea how to approach it because they've never even thought about their situation before. It's just a new to the parents as it is for their child, and that's really fucking scary. Maybe have a scene where a parent is speaking to their child on the other side of their locked door. Pleading to be let it, to talk, to understand. I have no idea if this at all interest you, but maybe when you're editing this poem that might be an option to play with and see where it leads for you.

CONCLUSION

I'm a huge dick, I don't compliment others easily because that's what artist never need. They need critiques that tear apart their work and hopefully lead them to make a better, stronger piece out of the rubble. However, I do want to say this about your work. While it still, of course, needs work, this is one of the better poems on this website (and trust me, I read a lot of poems here). Please keep working on this poem and share with us new ones in the future, you have some actual talent, don't let it go to waste.

MrTalljoker, Poetry.
Forever.