Am I truly happy

Engaging this reminds me of someone I used to know but am no longer in touch with. I don't believe this was a particularly powerful poem. It's almost like you shifted into neutral and absent-mindedly penned what you were thinking-- frustrations and question-ableness but not exuded through the many available Evocative prick of Stinging Emotions.

If there's one thing above all that really puts a kink in this writing is in the way the word happy is proceeded to be used over and over again. It's so shallow. Can we go deeper than happiness? I mean, isn't a poem to explore an issue, or at least adorn something picturesque to a higher degree. It is a decent base to start from, but it could definitely be expanded. Tell us more about Samantha, who she was, explain how some of her traits and qualities made you feel. Did she light up your world? How did you meet, give us some of the backstory maybe. Aim to make us step in your shoes as accurately as possible with pronounced statements and tumultuousness and misgivings and all the shock and heartache and small delights that rocked through your core as you mull over the past experiences

Let your emotions kind of set you ablaze, and spit the fire, and hurl it like a flamethrower as you spin your body or motion appropriately so that we understand the motives affixed behind the gesture. I find it helps me to think in color, in picture, access wounds, stab at past highs or lows, and what kind of bridges arched over the rivers that rose up in attempts to intercept & overwhelm my journey.

I have some suggestions for future thought, if you're interested. "Why do I lose my friends?" You could attempt to find some reasonable answers to why they become lost. You could take a couple lines and say something like, "Why do those that I attach to [like metaphorical picture a.] and they cleave to me as [poetic illustration of stick something] only to cast down my empire and smash my crown, scattering my hopes like civilians under siege and thirsty rivers shrinking to streams. Where are the green things, glorious simple things!?!?...etc. Make it a masterpiece. Let it Rip.

If I'm truly happy I should be [this and this and that] but I'm sitting here feeling [completely opposite, incomplete, meaningless, destitute, orphaned, gored in the liver etc.] Dramatic is the place to be in a poem. Sap it for what it's worth.

Am I happy with my life? Maybe tell us about the condition of it. Explore in some way if it is or not, weigh the pros and cons, the negs and positives. Is there anything still left after Samantha? is there something to come, perhaps around the corner. Woolgather the future, reminisce the past. Debate with yourself, dwell, swell; die of nothing but a rage to pour your soul onto the page.

Well, at this point I feel like I'm training over the same things. If it's right to you plain and straightforward then do you. I'm only telling you what I would like to see really, what would make it wail beautifully from over the ocean like Siren Song to me. But swim, and write some more, and swim. Find something distinct to your liking, in writing, or in life, or in something you do, and concentrate it like a videogame, to the next lever -to the next gateway -to the next garden - ABoard the next Boat go demolish the next barrier!!

Greetings to you! I am Schweinehund, and I shall now review your work. However, I am not much of a seasoned poet myself, so my criticism is purely subjective. I really don't know what I'm talking about.

I believe that the point of writing this piece was not so much to charm the reader, though rather to express the pain you're feeling. Despite the difficulty of expressing one's own emotions, I think you did a pretty good job in that department.

You begin your poem with a question many of us ask ourselves in difficult times. I find that the theme would have gone better as prose. Poetry is nice, but it's difficult to write. If you were to focus a bit more on the aesthetic value of your work (a richer vocabulary, mostly), I think it could be a really good poem.

These next two points are just my own personal nitpicks.

You use the word "happy" very often. Now, when done right, this can actually add to the effect of the poem, but I personally find that it is distracting more than anything else.

You make unnecessary paragraph breaks. For example, "Does having friends make me happy?" could easily fit in one line. It breaks the flow of the poem. I'd recommend keeping individual thoughts in one line, unless it's an extraordinarily long sentence.

That's about it, really! I think you did a good job! Keep up the good work!

I'm an amateur, so it's possible that my criticisms were unjust and completely invalid. Don't take my words too seriously.