Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
Hail Mary full of grace, Our Lord is with thee......
Cut the bullshit I am losing faith,
Every concept has evaporated,
My once joyous soul now exasperated,
My heart has been decimated multiple times,
Surrounded by constant hate and unacceptance by people I thought were friends of mine,
Fear evaporated and fury arose,
I twirl in sin and dance in the dark,
My new found hellish acts are rather stark,
My Catholic aura imploded
My mentality fried,
My soul now crumbled and dried
A demon has taken over my holy atmosphere,
This butterfly has returned to its cocoon;
Meet my inner Judas emerging from deep within.
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Hello,
I think you do a really good job of commanding the different biblical references and symbols you incorporate into your poem here. I think you definitely have an understanding of how they all fit together, and that comes across in the poem.
In the second line, I would consider changing "I am" to "I'm". There's a reason that people began contracting the words together; it's because moving sound-wise from the vowel of I to the vowel a in am creates a bit of time to pronounce correctly which kind of trips up the flow of your poem. Plus, it just sounds a little too formal right after "Cut the bullshit".
Another thing I would have you look at is your sixth line, which is so much longer than the others. It also feels like too much when reading it, so whether your intentions are for this to be a page poem or spoken, this line is throwing the poem off a little bit. I'd consider shortening the line to keep it around the same length as the other lines, or breaking it into two lines and foregoing the rhyming scheme entirely, whichever option is easier.
You use 'evaporated' twice; I wasn't sure if that was intentional so I thought I'd point it out.
You have a lot of good word choices in this; your verbs especially are strong, which is wonderful. I especially loved "My mentality fried". I thought it carried with it some lovely imagery and was a really strong word choice for getting your point across.
Hope this review helped! : )
-tgirly
Thanks so much! I will take your suggestions.
I have a good appreciation for this--just not the last line. Let's talk about it.
Opening with the first lines of the Hail Mary is a great hook, and while it's been done before, you yank a nice and fresh--and immediate--contrast in the next line with the immediate swear and an unexpected flipped in-rhyme with "grace.../faith" which I think is really the hook here. It's either where people will engage or turn off the Kindle, y'know? You know. It's a great hook, and definitely one of the better ones I've seen out of the religious flip genre.
Now you have decent rhymes--some of them feel a little bit wedged in, but they're okay--and the speed and momentum you create with your quick lines* gives this the feeling of a slam poem, so I'd really encourage trying this aloud (though if your family is religious, maybe when you're off by yourself.)
*The exception to your quick and slammish lines is "Surrounded...friends of mine," which just takes SO MUCH BREATH to get out, it's exhausting. I'd suggest either finding a way to cut this in half or break it into two lines.
And then there's the final line, which I just absolutely hate. If you don't believe in the canon at this point, if you revel in your new life outside of the church, then I don't think you'd find much point in comparing yourself to Judas, since his ultimate end was him hanging himself. That's...not quite a good end for something that seems to be being birthed.
Thoughts for editing. Hope this helps!
Ty
Hi there JaylinBoykins! Niteowl here to review.
Overall, I like this. It shows the transformation of someone who once had faith and was "good" but now feels alone and "evil". There's a nice use of religious imagery as well.
I noticed that you used "evaporated" twice, which really sticks out in a short poem. This one works because of the rhyme, while the other is just a solid line in general, but having both of them feels really weird, so I'd consider replacing one of them.
The first line is cool, but the second line feels like it's just unraveling in search of finding the rhyming word. Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about the rhyming in this poem. Sometimes, it's good, but other times (like this pair) it feels forced. Other times you lose it entirely, like the last two lines. It might be worth taking it out entirely simply because it's so inconsistent.
First off, I love these lines. That said, there's a couple minor issues. One is the repeat of "evaporated" that I mentioned above. Maybe you could replace this one if you want to keep the rhyming. Second, "arose" not only doesn't rhyme, but this line is in past tense when the whole rest of the poem is in present.
Another line that goes on too long and makes the rhyming seem forced. I think this one is a fairly easy fix though. If you shorten the second line to "my soul crumbled and dried", the meter works and the rhyme is solid.
There's a little mix and matching going on with the religious imagery here, and I don't know how I feel about it. Judas wasn't a demon, but rather a human disciple who betrayed Jesus. I definitely think the idea of an "inner Judas" is more interesting for that reason, as the idea of fighting inner demons has been done to death. This could definitely be expanded on if you wanted to, but it also works pretty well as an ending line (though I would ditch the ellipsis).
One last thought: why is the whole poem in italics? Generally I look to italics as putting special emphasis on something, but that doesn't work when they're on the whole piece. Personally, I would have the first line italicized since it's a quote, but keep the rest in plain text.
Overall, this is a good read. Keep writing!