Butterfly Project

Hey MidnightRhode!

It’s been a little while since I’ve reviewed anything poetic or lyrical, so my apologies in advance.

From just a first look, I think that if might help if you divided this into stanzas, just to more easily see sections and ideas. If you had line breaks in there but the formatting didn’t work out, I think there’s a way you can use </br> to make those spaces, or you can always put a dash in a line to do that as well. (I can explain the </br> thing better if you’re interested in that)

Okay, so I’m going to sort of go in order of things before an overall look, so I’m going to get right into it!

“Will you please tell me
What it means to feel.
Like your heart was stolen
From you… Ripped apart.
I know that it hurts
But you have to stay here.
Without me you have nothing”

The first four lines seem a bit confusing. The first two are fine, but the addition of the second two makes it hard to tell your meaning. Do you want to say “tell me what it means to feel” with the answer being “it’s like your heart was stolen”? Or is it more like, “tell me what it means to feel like your heart was stolen from you”? Neither of those entirely make sense to me, so you may want to think about what you mean there. Then the line about “you have to stay here” — is that a metaphore? Staying the same? In the light of the last line here, it seems like “stay here with me”. Your choice on the addition of that bit depending on your meaning there as well.

That’s what they all say.

It’s what they make you think.

From those silly lies

It’s like a poison in your drink.

This is where you lapse a little bit into rhyming. I like rhyming, but I really like it to be consistent. I get that it can just happen accidentally, but if the rest of your song is all free verse, then it’s probably best to rhyme on a refrain if anywhere at all. The third line also seems a bit open ended — from where? It needs to have something else, like, “from those silly little lies grows a poison in your drink”. It really needs a word like grows or comes. “From x comes y”. The line as it is now doesn’t have a lot of meaning. It shows that there are lies, but it doesn’t tell anything about them.

But what they should be saying

Is that “without me you have

Nothing else to fear. Because

I fuel the pain that you feel

Inside. It’s all my fault please

Just don’t give up”

Your lines don’t all need to be so short! It sounds a little stilted when reading it out loud because the breaks aren’t always natural. Sometimes you want to highlight a key word, maybe like inside because you have a break there, but if you want to do that, I would suggest putting it on its own line rather than starting the next sentence right there.
Another thing I just thought of is the “they”. “They all say” “what they should be saying”. We get a sense of “they” by the end of the piece, but maybe you could drop some more hints near the beginning so that it’s a little bit easier to guess.

But obviously they say it’s a phase.

Is this a different “they”? May need to specify. Also, it’s not very obvious to the readers, so maybe choose a different word than that?

Overall, I like the idea, but there are two main things that I think need to be addressed.
First, the multiple people. You use “me” “you” and “they”, and it’s a little bit hard to keep track of. Usually it’s just two people mentioned. — you and me or me and they or something. You can keep all three, but you may need to be sure you clarify what the relationships are, and who each person is. You don’t have to state it explicitly, but it might help for it to be a little more up-front.
Second, the quotes. That sort of goes hand in hand with the first thing, but the quotation marks also get a little confusing. Separating stanzas might help with that, but maybe you don’t need so many. You can have a few quotes, but do they all need to be that long? If you could cut some down or paraphrase, that might also increase clarity.

Last thing, I could also see some imagery working well in here! There’s not a lot, and while it doesn’t have to be dense, weaving some in could enhance the emotions and the tone. It can just be one word thrown in there, and there are a lot of possible adjectives that you could use without sounding too much like you’re stuffing it full of description.

Remember, everything I say is just a suggestion! You don’t have to make any changes if you don’t want to. I was wondering, do you have a tune to this? That would be neat, and sometimes I used to make little tunes to songs. Good luck if you intend to revise, and good luck on future writing! You’ve got a good start.

-Q