20 Questions

Hey there Amadeus. I realized that I had started a review on your piece and had never managed to finish it.
It's always nice to see poetry floating around the site with such a heart put into it, and even better to see it when people choose to experiment with their work. There's a few things I see here that could be taken to a different level but you are doing pretty good with some of the concepts. Definitely some creative word choice whenever it pops up in your usage.

Let's start with the first line, rather than the title, which led me to ask for a much more comedic poem. And also a different format.

I’m seventeen and I have a life,

I'll be very honest by saying that I don't think much of this line and it doesn't bring me into the poem. That worried me a bit. When you're not catching the reader right off of the bat, it doesn't leave much hope for whoever is reading through your long compilation of ideas. This is my third read through and I still haven't made it all of the way through, partially due to my own distractions but also with the poem itself being so distracting. When the writer is going stream of conscious, as this seems to be to me, there is a lot of movement in the topics. And unless it's presented in this very particular way, it just ends up being sloppy.

The poem does look a little off in its length in structure and I have far too much to say about this subject. I would really, really like to see you use stanzas because stanzas as a singular way of creating structure within a work just do so much. Even though this should be edited heavily for the use of punctuation and the lines that disturb the flow, just creating some organization of the many thoughts would make it cleaner. And I think that is an overall thing that people look over when talking about poetry: how neat it is.

This is the point when I usually split a piece up into sections/suggested stanzas, and this review will be no different.

I’m seventeen and I have a life,
I should be free to express how I decide,
The thing that irks me is your eyebrow raise -
The way you question when I’m either too happy, or too sad.

I'm very mixed on how the capitalization is done in this poem, with some lines needing the caps but on others it doesn't work to the punctuation format. If you're keeping to these more regular sentences spread over a stanza or a single line, caps on every line often don't mix. I like it for the usage on "I" and then further down once you reach those quick questions.
Not working up here though.

If I’m in joy you think I’m married,
If I am somber you think I’m divorced.
Can’t you leave my feelings be?

I know you love me, as I do you,
But I don’t want your breath to trace my neck.

Another thing about stanza formatting in this case is how your stanzas/groupings might be very short, like the way I've pushed them together in the example above. These two groups could go together to form one stanza or in any other way, this is just how I interpreted the thoughts fitting together as. And then I already mentioned the other formatting twice so no need to repeat.

The quick conclusion of emotions from the narrator to the subject in question feels rather awkward, with only the context of the previous stanza. I imagine that this is somehow rooted in person relations as most poems talking about living your own life end up. And then it skips down to the slightly sexual wording of the lines about "love", adding an entirely different vibe to the narrator.

It's just not integrating right.

Yes, I know you’ve cared for me no matter what,
Sometimes though it feels that you have GPS
Watching every step I take.

No, that’s ridiculous - you wouldn’t do that!

So far this has been a rather clunky free verse poem, focused more on shouting than going together, but this line really breaks it? I'm not exactly sure how to explain the concept outside of saying you've been edging on a low fuel tank for awhile but now the car has come to a full stop. The other times the following lines and the following words make up for the choppy feeling. Now we just have a quick stop explaining the GPS feeling, which was barely introduced a moment before.

Then the doubt again. I'll just have to see how that continues.

It’s just when you ask me things that have no rhyme or reason,
I feel bombarded by the gaze that’s cute but quite annoying.

I know you think that twenty questions gonna make you know me better,
But it’s my life – please understand;
I like my secrets, even if they’re meaningless,
'Cause petty things can make a ton of difference.

Now that we (the readers) have had the chance to connect more of the dots, the title doesn't feel as awkward as it did earlier on. One suggestion that's been sticking with me the entire way is that perhaps you could start the poem out with a question from the person asking. Or even just a simple "Why?" from the narrator before they begin their justifications for not wanting the person to question their choices.

Even with the wording still feeling off, I'm enjoying the concept that came with this set.

For one example, here’s an instance:
Laughing when there is no joke,
“Why do you laugh?” (“Why do you fucking care?”)
I say something yet you know it’s a lie.

Only one note for this stanza:
This is a definite place to work on experimenting with the structure, with your narrator giving the two sets of answers. Their inside thoughts could be set off to the right and/or put in italics, noting it to be more of a real thought. And perhaps it would also go better if you want to give what the narrator's fake answer was, rather than quickly stumbling to "they don't believe me".

I think again that you suppose the most extreme of all -
That I have a date, some junior from PE! But no.
It’s just a fricken' memory of a joke in class today!

I keep switching back and forth between the kind of personal relation of the two characters, especially with lines like this that can be hinting towards different abuse. Once I hit here, it's feeling more like a guardian/child relationship versus my earlier thoughts of it being a romantic relation. In the list of the reasons why the reader would want to know the type of relation is knowing how to feel for the narrator.

If this kind of control is coming from a parent, it doesn't really sound like that extreme of a controlling situation. And then by default I'm not feeling too much for the narrator. If they are instead talking about their partner, a partner that they have to declare their age to as a justification for choices, that doesn't speak for good things.

That's just something to think about when you come to looking at the specifics of the wording.

Do I really have to spell it out?
Do you really have to know?
Do I really have to answer things that have no fucking meaning?

Twenty questions, twenty way too many;
You think that your just helping me,
But please, don’t ask! I’ve had enough already!

This poem fell apart for me towards the end because you had the chance for it to be more of a conversation. Maybe I got too stuck on the title and thought there would be more of a dynamic of the narrator firing back, rather than the standard mood. I get that they're annoyed but I don't really have the details about the questions that are so jarring to their life.

And this might also be a spot to play around with the formatting, where the line lengths becomes more irregular than before. I'm not the biggest fan of that type of conforming but you might want to consider it with the overall flow issue.

I think that's about all of the commentary I have.
If you have any questions about this review or anything else, drop me a line.
Good job and good luck.
- Lizz