z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

"Sight"

by Vermiliondawn


"Sight"

As a child having 20/20 vision was a measure of success to me.As if it gave me to the ability to see better than those around me. As I grew up I began to see through all the lies, and because of that I began to realize that perfect sight skewed my perception. My mom once asked "if all of your friends jumped off of a bridge would you jump too?" Crazy because if it came down to it, that's exactly what I'd do. Because as we age we begin to feel as if conformity becomes our only option, so we deny ourselves and turn into a slave of reality. With out realizing that reality is ever changing. Therefore There's no way to predict or understand humans or as to why our actions occur. With that in mind I am beginning to understand that in order to understand while trying to be understanding, Understanding the words of understanding which to my understanding serve to understand me need to be understood in order to gain some understanding. Too much? That's crazy right? No it's insane, Insanity is my only option. It's sickening to know that my insanity serves as a plan B. Now I ask you Which is crazier, being crazy or understanding. I say that for this point, our deepest thoughts from Burnt joints, we understand our world when we're high, it seems like cloud nine is far below, I speak facts to say how far our generation will go. To tell you that the universe and it's reality can so easily be changed as long as your mindset. Your headspace. Yourself are rearranged. You'll be fine bro, just take a hit of this jay. And with that life brings stress and pain. And in the end for all of the strife life brings we are repaid with death. It's crazy, I'm seeing these things now, where before I wouldn't've cared. How my eyes have changed because of the things that I've feared. I was told that with anything I tried I could succeed, but, my success is defined by people who don't even care enough to see. And we're left to let those people tell us we're good enough, so how then can I be free? How does this regard as fate? I'm going insane, Im trying to look at the big picture but I'm just not seeing straight. I now have to proceed with the devilish seeds I've sown, I'm failing my eye test, it's time to go home. It's time to quit and close my eyes. Let this darkness overtake me, that way I do not have to fake, take my mask off and I hope you can relate. let my mind be free, and let these evil thoughts escape from me. At this point there's no reason to fight. I've truly realized, Sometimes you have to go blind in order to gain sight....


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10 Reviews


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Sat Mar 11, 2017 5:15 am
hexglass wrote a review...



Hey there, Vermiliondawn! hexglass here for a review.

To start off, I really enjoyed the ideas you've explored here in this poem, especially the circular way you've tied this piece together with the idea of 'sight'. It's interesting, in reading it I felt there was a very strong rhythm here, a sort of momentum; reminiscent of a rap, perhaps? In any case, it was easy to fall into and I really believe that is a great strength of yours.

As a bit of a stickler for grammar, it's really the main issue for me here. In many places, you have capitalised words which do not need it, and sometimes you're missing commas -- which would really help with readability and flow.

With out realizing that reality is ever changing. Therefore There's no way to predict or understand humans or as to why our actions occur. With that in mind I am beginning to understand that in order to understand while trying to be understanding, Understanding the words of understanding which to my understanding serve to understand me need to be understood in order to gain some understanding.


I just want to point out that 'without' is a single word, and there's no need to capitalise 'there's' in the second sentence of this excerpt. Where you've written 'or as to why our actions occur', I might suggest you take out 'as to', because an easy way to check sentence accuracy is to forget everything in between the verb and subject. In your case, you want to focus on 'understand' and 'why our actions occur'. As soon as this runs smoothly, you can put 'humans or' back in! :^) Thus, it should read:

'Therefore there's no way to predict or understand humans or why our actions occur.'

For your sentence centred around 'understanding', I'd like to first say that it's beautifully written. The flexibility of the English language is captured so well, and for that, kudos! Some parts I'd like to draw your attention to is that you've capitalised 'understanding' after the first comma in the sentence, which is unnecessary. Another thing, and this is purely a suggestion based on personal taste: you could break up the sentence with more punctuation for the sake of clarity. By that, I mean something along the lines of:

'With that in mind, I am beginning to understand that in order to understand while trying to be understanding, understanding the words of understanding -- which to my understanding serve to understand me -- need to be understood, in order to gain some understanding.'

In my view, it doesn't detract from the fluidity of your sentence, and instead makes it much easier to understand and hence appreciate. However, I completely understand if you'd rather not change it, since the original way it has been written also achieves its purpose and communicates the key ideas.

From that point onward, I can detect a stronger beat and some noticeable rhyme, which I find is a nice touch -- perhaps, for consistency, I'd prefer that rhyme to be present throughout the poem, but once again it's just personal taste. The capitalisation is still a point I want to bring up, however, because it can distract the reader from the profundity of your content. That aside, you also use a lot of short sentences. They're really great for emphasis or a break from longer, more complex lines, but using too many in succession or truncating a sentence prematurely (when the shorter one that follows could easily be integrated into the first) can detract from their value.

As a whole, I really liked this! For most of the review I've just been picking out grammar, but in terms of content, I found this poem extremely fascinating. Conformity is something I definitely think should be explored more, though I do get the sense that you're raising a few other ideas that obfuscate your original message as the poem progresses. Nonetheless, the poem comes to a very satisfying conclusion, moving from 20/20 vision to blindness. That, I think, is an exceptionally well-executed ending.

Looking forward to reading more of your writing!






First off thank you, many of the critiques and reviews for my work are about grammar, it's always been the most difficult thing to get a hold of in my writing. The capital letters are because when I rewrite a sentence I usually don't go back and change the original start of the word, so it sometimes leaves random caps. That's something I have to work on for myself. In the future I'll try and proofread my work so that it's a better experience for my audience. Thank you for you're helpful and kind words.



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Fri Mar 10, 2017 12:09 pm



This philosophy is interesting - My mind is buzzing with focus around you, but my basic thinking is that 'common sense' in itself is basically the easy way because the majority see it that way, and even though the average of the crowd is probable to be correct, what if most people made different decisions? I mean common sense is an illusion, that you should not focus so much on what other people think, because life is (arguably) all about literally standing out, enjoying yourself and basically creating another butterfly effect through time. To put it in another perspective, if you subscribed to a Youtube channel the butterfly effect might make someone invent a time machine, and it's nevertheless even if you are say, disabled or poor, you are still making an effect. And even if it causes a mistake, people learn from mistakes otherwise time would basically be wasted. Our industry seems to have exploded with advanced technology, but in reality the greatness of inventions is slowly descending, because people make less mistakes, either being scared or unable in a sense of way, or both. So I support you. Thanks! #Awesomeness




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22 Reviews


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Fri Mar 10, 2017 12:01 pm
Ferruccio1234567 wrote a review...



I think I can relate... I wrote a short story about a girl who is trying to fit in. Chapter 1:
Shia was 16, a cute girl with flaming red hair cut short. She was pretty in many ways, and also smart - she went to the Meijin Academy in Tokyo for her studies. Born of Japanese descent, she had studied advanced calculus and had straight A*s in english. One time, she returned home to find her mother sitting opposite the computer. She could instantly tell something was wrong. “According to this, daughter, you have drawn graffiti on the temple for ten weeks straight.” Shia started to protest, but her mother cut her off. “We have definite proof this is correct, as we have video that shows you did it. We need now to discuss consequences.” Shia’s older brother Wilfred entered. “As far as I am concerned, that video was a forgery. The accused was somewhere else at that time and the video was too dark to see anything properly.” Thank you Wilfred, Shia thought. But her father entered the room. “We have professed our care on you for too long. It is time for you to learn how to live by yourself. I think living by yourself would be the ideal consequence and training.” Wilfred gasped quietly but Shia nodded. Her soft footsteps broke the awkward silence as she went to pack her bags.

The day finally came for the leave. Her father left a goodbye message: “We will pay the rent for one month. If you can take care of yourself for that month, we can pay your rent until university or you can come to live with us. If you cannot care for yourself, we will abandon you.” She looked at the small house with its tiled roof and bricked walls, reminding herself this may be the last time she would be here. She got into Wilfred’s Volkswagen Beetle and allowed herself a moment of peace. When they finally got out, having been stopped several times by the atrocious Tokyo traffic, Wilfred hugged her goodbye and whispered: “Take care. I don’t want to see you injured, or worse, dead.” She silently and sadly made her way up, using the lift. She put down her bags and checked the time, five o’ clock. She grabbed some money from her wallet shoving it into her pocket angrily as she went down again, reminding herself she needed to have dinner. She saw a Marks and Spencer and entered, taking a careful note of what she needed to buy. Seeing the chocolate shelf, she grinned and thought, well, I could treat myself…. She couldn’t reach the top crate, having it pinned to the tall roof, and suddenly saw the neat rows of trolleys, getting an idea formed in her mind.

Checking to see if there was anyone, she dragged a trolley and stood on top of it, getting the bar. But she lost her balance, and fell onto the ground. Well, nearly. Someone had grabbed her shoulders at the last moment, and she turned around sheepishly to see a handsome teen, averaging out same age and same height as her. He had matt-black hair and a warm but calculating look in his blue eyes. He wasn’t smiling but didn’t seem angry. Shia’s heart beat faster as he said in a soft voice: “Are you okay?” She couldn’t answer as she slowly tore herself from his grip and left. She paid instantly, and as she went out she had complex thoughts. How had she been so careless? Why couldn’t she answer? Her mind flooded with realisation. Even in this crowded capital, she was well and truly alone.





Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.
— Robert Brault