Without Pride

Hi there! Deeproses here for a crappy review! Hope you can use these tips and my opinion to help with future writings.

Overall this poem addresses a sensitive topic, so I might have a hard time writing a review or really a good one. but i do like what the poem is about, it is a great topic to talk about.

I don't understand or really see the point in putting "After" randomly through the poem. Perhaps you are trying to put your poem in chronological form and say it as a story? If that isn't it, I am quite confused to why you put it randomly in the poem.

A cute girl on tinder asked if I could meet her at the "pride parade"

I feel like you could have done a lot to re-write this. I feel this way about most of the poem. That it is very vague and makes the poem come off not as fearful as the narrator is trying to be. Perhaps try using stronger word choice so the reader can identify and relate to the narrators feelings?

This poem all together is a bit confusing and all over the place. But i do recommend stronger word choice and making things more emotional and clearer.

Thanks! Hope you have a good day and keep writing!

Hello TMWoods!
I think the story you are telling is quite interesting, but your main issue here is the punctuation.
There's definitely an over-usage of commas and a lot of dead-end sentences. For instance,

I didn't go.

After.

A cute girl on tinder asked if I could meet her at the "pride parade"

and I said no.

I was scared,

to see the hate in signs, in hands, in people.

That somebody can show up with a gun,

and some would still cheer.

It's all sort of abrupt, and the punctuation is way off. You put periods where they don't belong and cut lines very short. I'm not planning to go all the way through the poem and correct every punctuation mistake, but hopefully this example might help out when you edit through the rest of the poem:

I didn't go

after that cute girl on tinder asked if I could meet her at the "pride parade,"

and I said no.

I was scared to see the hate in signs in people's hands.

I was scared that somebody would show up with a gun,

and some would still cheer.

note: I made some different wording suggestions for the sake of clearing up confusion, but those decisions are up to you.

The rest of the poem is mostly in disarray. Like what I mentioned with the punctuation being a big issue, your other main ones are explaining the story throughout the poem, poor imagery and a lot of confusing sentences that I honestly can't make sense of, such as:

being out, outside, is scary.

Who knows who might hate you.

Who knows who might,

Who knows-

Again with the excessive use of commas... The last two lines don't serve much of a purpose for the rest of the poem. They don't lead up to anything and it just kind of ends. And that's it. No elaboration, no explanation, no nothing.

I really love the concept, and it's such a real thing in the world right now. I do very much appreciate the idea behind it, but there are some major things you have to work on. Unfortunately I can't be of much help, but I try. However, I am very hopeful that you can do some awesome things with this! Great work.

-Amelie.