A gentle fear.

I adore this poem. It intrigues me greatly because one of the things i look so desperately for in a good piece of writing is where the poem is personal to the writer but can be read into so it is also personal to the reader - and this is perfect because it can be interpreted in so many different ways;
mental illness, fake friends, a broken family etc,
I love the use of almost paradoxes - 'the ghouls will keep me safe' and 'the sirens will sing to me' the reason i love this so much is simply because something universally known as bad and scary are the things you have as a safety blanket. But i have to admit my favourite line of this poem and also probably the best line i've heard a long while is
' I wait with them,
and try not
to become them.'

This is such a well thought out line and even though it is only 10 words it pack a hell of a punch. It leaves you with a lot of questions and certainly not in a bad way - such as who are they? why is it almost a battle not to become them? and why do you feel this way about them?
All questions that i like not being answered because like i mentioned earlier is leaves room for interpretation.

The only bad thing i could come up with was that i'm not really a fan of how you sometimes put two run on sentences consecutively, why not just make one a longer sentence or place a comma in there?
But really such a tiny thing like that doesn't stand a chance to being the main focus when it comes to how extraordinary this poem is.
i normally sign off reviews with ' keep up the writing' but for my sake at least, KEEP UP THE WRITING!!!!!
i can't wait to see what else you have/are writing
from cara x

The imagery was exquisite! "The ghouls will keep me safe. The sirens will sing to me. The monsters will rock me to sleep." Great use of personification I loved it!!

Hello

I thought you did an amazing job on this. I read it twice. (Not to look for corrections, but because I liked it so much.)
There are a few things I saw though...

"But for now
I wait with them"
You should have a comma after now. Without it, the reader will see it as a run on sentence.

"A hot blooded

mess."
This should be one line. It would make more sense and make the poem look neater.

"Ignited when the

screams sound sweet. "
I personally think that Ignited should be on it's own line, and the rest of the sentence on another. Or have "Ignited when" on one line, and "The screams sound sweet." on another. I think it would look better.


"The ghouls will keep me safe.

The sirens will sing to me.

The monsters will rock me to sleep."
I just want to comment on this. I think this was an amazing way to end the poem. It leaves the reader in such interest that they'll want more. But the last sentence is definitely my favorite. It sounds like it could be part of a song.

Overall, I liked this a lot. I thought you did very well on it. I hope to see more from you very soon. Keep up the amazing work!

Hello! This is RedApril29th reviewing your poem "A Gentle Fear". I typically review short poems, as yours is. It gives me more time to focus each line, truly think it through.
I do agree with TheMessenger, the poem is rather creepy. I will review it piece by piece for you.

"Hunched,
they snarl in
anxious wait.
The beast I may
one day become."
Okay, so this part confuses me a little bit. It starts off as 'hunched THEY snarl' but soon starts talking about how they are beasts 'I' may one day become. What are these beasts? I don't quite understand this and think it could be more descriptive. What are they? I associate them with multiple things, possibly other school students, maybe colleagues at work. I think you should narrow it down a little better. I also like how it is though, because it does give you that freedom to wonder. So it's good and bad all at once.

"A hot blooded
mess.
Ignited when the
screams sound sweet."
I love the first line, 'a hot blooded mess'. I don't know what it is that rings so well but I really like it. I don't like the second line as much better. Again, it's good and bad because it allows you to wonder. I'm confused because I've never heard screams sound 'sweet'. It reminds me of Monsters Inc, how the monsters are looking for screams.

"But for now
I wait with them,
and try not
to become them."
This part brings me back to associating them with school students. Perhaps the child in the poem is hanging out with a more cruel crowd, a crowd that picks and bullys others. Maybe the child doesn't want to become like them, but still wants to remain in their clique. This is just what comes into my mind at this aprt.



"The ghouls will keep me safe.
The sirens will sing to me.
The monsters will rock me to sleep."
This line seems a bit pointless but adds to that eernyness of the poem.


I rate the poem 5/10, however. Keep up the good work!

OK, kind of really creepy poem here. Her's my review as I said.
This poem is really scary, and you did a good job of creating a sense of fear and horror about the beasts, and ll that stuff. And I get how the MC is trying not to become one of them, and how it is tempting, but I think you need more description. And the flow seems a bit choppy. It wasn't very easy to read. Not that a poem should always be easy to read, but if I can't find a rhythm then I can't fully enjoy the poem. You wrote it well though, I will give you that.
Keep it up!

Hey there! Robbie here.
I'll start off by saying that do I like this poem but, no offense, there's really nothing all that gentle about these thoughts. It's kind of sadistic and profoundly creepy. I don't quite understand the whole message behind it but that's the nice thing about poetry: I don't have to. They're your thoughts and only you will get the real message behind it. The rest of us just have to interpret.
Some technical suggestions:
First,

"Hunched,

they snarl in

anxious wait."

I think you should just change "wait" to "waiting." It makes it easier to read in my opinion. Not that it's a difficult read or anything, but I think it just flows a little nicer. Then again, that's just my opinion.

Second, "hot blooded" just needs a hyphen. That's all.

Thirdly, I feel as though it just needs maybe one line or another stanza to really finish it off. You have a lot of intense feelings here that don't seem to be wrapped up in any way. Maybe that's the point, but it feels as though there's something missing. Sorry, that's kind of vague but I'm also not inside your head. It's not up to me to tell you how to feel. Anyway, those are just some suggestions. Aside from that, I really enjoyed reading this. Keep up the good work!
Fava out.

Knight Dragon, here to review!

The only punctuation suggestions I have are "But for now/I wait with them" should have a comma where the slash is (that slash indicates line break in poetry). It would definitely help to have a pause there; that, and "A hot blooded/mess./Ignited when...", I would change the period to a comma. I would also put "mess" in the same line as "A hot blooded."

Hope this helps!