For those of you who've read my poetry before, you will note that I don't often write in free verse. But I thought this poem needed it. Sorry this isn't polished, but I had to get it out of my brain. Enjoy!
I have a chink in my armor.
I thought it was nothing,
Just a few issues here and there.
I thought it would fix itself in time.
I didn't want to bother with a prayer;
Surely God was busy enough.
----
I have a crack in my armor.
I found myself snapping at my friend today.
Sure, she was being annoying,
But that was no reason at all.
I wanted to apologize, but yet
I was afraid of hurting her more.
----
I have a gap in my armor.
I sat and brooded all day.
My brother asked me what was wrong,
But I just slammed the door and wouldn't speak.
I don't want to talk; I don't want to pray.
What use is it anyway?
----
I have a hole in my armor.
I ignored my mom's request to help with supper.
My brother tried to tease me;
I yelled at him and huddled on the couch.
My fingers were tired from stabbing at my phone,
One angry text after another off to my best friend.
----
I hate this hole in my armor.
All I want to do is drown myself in nothingness.
I hear a whisper in my head, a taunting poke:
"You are a failure. Look at what you've done."
No, I won't listen. I won't fall into that trap.
I fell on my knees and prayed.
----
I have new links in my armor;
The hole is patched up, my issues behind me for now.
I wonder why it took me so long to figure out
That I have only one hope, one strength,
An armor mender and a chain breaker.
And He always listens, even when I don't want to speak.
He's my God.
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Oh man, oh, man. This gave me goosebumps.
Have a wonderful day.
Well- glory bumps, as my Pastor calls them.
I think this is really good, the hook was really interesting. It caught my eye. It seems that you saw the chink and realized that you should pray about it but didn’t want to be bothersome (And you never are, God is always listening.) You knew that you couldn’t rely on your own self, but on God. This goes to say a lot about as a person and your entirety. You are able to admit defeat and realize you were in that wrong.
If I do say so myself, it takes guts to do that. But Praise the Lord, you got ‘em.
Hi AJ! Glad to see you tackling some Christian themes in your poem.
I'm here to leave some thoughts and review.
So, I actually liked your progression of building on that "chink" in the armor because you mixed it up a little, you didn't use the exact same language every time but gradually grew the picture showed a growing problem. Sure it's a bit expected, but it wasn't completely formulaic or done without thought.
The end was almost a bit too sweet for my liking though, and I'll explain why. You say "The hole is patched up, my issues behind me for now" but the speaker is still relying on their own strength they still have the same armor. -> like you're back to square one, when in Christianity I think the idea isn't just renewal but transformation. This is a little bit preachy, so feel free to ignore if it doesn't mesh with your belief system, but God gives us a new identity where we no longer even have to worry about the "armor" or our "works" or "goodness" -- we're just transformed with mercy and grace and sure may still sin, but sin and death lose their control over our lives.
I think that this side of it was sort of left out, so by the end rather than feeling like the speaker had encountered God and received that life-giving forgiveness, it felt like that the speaker had momentarily put a bandage on the problem. By the end I don't think the speaker needs to still be so concerned with the armor.
That being said, your last two lines are a nice finish for your poem and hit the nail on the head. The last two lines resonated with me as a reader and believer.
I think the overall story could have used a bit more cohesion, like melding some of the stories together to paint a more cohesive picture rather than just seemingly "random" events of the day. But I think the structure for the most part worked and was clear enough to understand.
And overall I did enjoy your message and the way you used story to communicate it.
Let me know if you have any questions about my review!
~alliyah
Thanks for the review!
The "armor" is, indeed, spiritual armor and this is written from the perspective of a Christian, but the chinks and holes are supposed to represent failures and a continuted, unconfessed sin. Just the times where a Christian starts to leave small sins unconfessed, and those sins grow into bigger and bigger sins and more and more problems. It's not intended to be fixed by human hands, but by God, and we are the ones who keep on failing. I hope that makes sense. It made sense to me. xD
Thanks again for the comments! This poem is just more like my thought patterns, and I may have been a littttle too busy to actually do any editing, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.
-AJ
Ayyyy, so this is not how things work out. Let's talk about that.
I'm going to imagine that the entire poem was written with the final stanza in mind, which is a bit common among Christian poetry; it essentially makes all between stanzas filler, and you get very little character development from within them. Does this apply to this poem? Yessss. Is it remedied? Yes. You simply have to break this formulaic system of:
Entry of a stanza
I'm diving further into cliche darkness because of sin
I'm not worth Jesus
Not one bit
until the end where you change your tune into a third verse hymn and say
I am a stanza!
My darkness is fled!
If not for Jesus!
I surely would be dead!
It seriously made me wipe my face with my hand in disappointment. So jazz it up. Break it up. CHANGE it up. You're capable of thinking outside your own box, I'm sure.
Beyond that, your stanzas lack flow, and you don't need to capitalize the first of every line. That's archaic malpractice.
All the best,
Ty
The poem is written as a progression, and that's why it's put into stanzas like that. Does it lead up to the ending? Of course, because that's what the whole poem points towards. Is it repetitive? Yes, because I do the same thing every time. It's a cycle.
I suppose I think of it more like cut scenes, snippets of a progression into a place that I personally keep slipping into.
I apologize that this poem didn't sit well with you. The structure is purposeful, and, to me, the message is more important than the way in which it's versed. (Not to say I don't want to write poetry well, but this came from personal experiences)
I hope you find meaning in this, if not now, then some day.
Thanks for the review
-AJ
Hello ajruby! Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!
I have a chink in my armor.
}
Pfft I'm an atheist but I'm bored so REVIEW TIME
Give me your soul.With that aside, I'm not the best at poetry but here we go!
Bold = grammar and flow issues.
Italics = suggestions and overall
Strikethrough= removeUnderline = random Kara comments.
Spoiler
I thought it was nothing,
Just a few issues here and there.
I thought it would fix itself
in time.I didn't want to bother with
aprayer{s};Surely God was busy enough.
----
I have a crack in my armor.
I found myself snapping at my friend today.
Sure, she was being annoying,
But that was no reason at all.
I wanted to apologize, but yet
I was afraid of hurting her more. {Apologizing is the way to go, bud
----
I have a gap in my armor.
I
sat andbrooded all day.My brother asked me what was wrong,
But I just slammed the door and wouldn't speak.
I don't want to talk; I don't want to pray.
What use is it anyway?
----
I have a hole in my armor.
I ignored my mom's request to help with supper.
My brother tried to tease me;
I yelled at him and huddled on the couch.
My fingers were tired from stabbing at my phone,
One angry text after another off to my best friend.
----
I hate this hole in my armor.
All I want to do is drown myself in nothingness.
I hear a whisper in my head, a taunting poke:
"You are a failure. Look at what you've done."
No, I won't listen. I won't fall into that trap.
I fell on my knees and prayed.
----
I have new links in my armor;
The hole is patched up, my issues behind me for now.
I wonder why it took me so long to figure out
That I have only one hope, one strength,
An armor mender and a chain breaker.
And He always listens, even when I don't want to speak.
He's my God. {You don't need the italics here}
Overall, this is pretty good, especially considering you don't usually write free verse. Now, I don't believe in God, so this was KIND of confusing, but ya know, all of us have these days. Even me, and I'm a goddess.
Why haven’t you given me your soul yet? --
Kara
Thanks for the review. I appreciate the comments. I know the structure isn't ideal, but hey, I wrote it with a full brain and not a whole lot of time.
I put the last line in italics to make it stand out a little. I thought about putting it in bold, but that just was an eyesore.
And sorry, but my soul happens to be quite secure elsewhere.
-AJ
I think you were one of the fortunates to have their soul eaten last week by me. Congratulations. You're special.
Ha, not exactly... But keep guessing.
Oh, yes you were, I recognize the dog pic. You just weren't aware
I loved your poem. Went along well with what I received this morning from Him.
Isaiah 50
10 Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let the one who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on their God.
11 But now, all you who light fires
and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires
and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand:
You will lie down in torment.
Thanks for reading! It's amazing how God works to bring truth to your mind, isn't it?
I actually starting thinking up this concept when I was reading through Screwtape Letters (which is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it if you're into literature). It's just been a struggle of mine for a while now. But I suppose it'll always been a struggle, because I'm a stubborn human 'bean.
-AJ
I have seen a little portion of the Screwtape book. I didn't particularly enjoy it. Too complicated to extricate. I can see sort of how the idea jumped into your head from it tho, with demons trying to get God's followers tripped up over petty conflicts and disputes. And then on top of it shame them immediately afterward.
But God would say something gentle, to get you back on track.
He becomes more overt & palpable the heavier your heart is. Thus as soon as we feel Him we should just shrug all the bleck off and Tell Him how Immaculate He is
Ha, they are a bit complicated, but SO interesting to dive into. You ought to wait a couple years and try them again. Of course, I'm a literature nerd, so maybe it's just me.
I was just thinking about problems that we cause to ourselves when we continually sin, and then the picture of dented armor came into my mind, and thus sprung the poem!
xDD Ruby! (I has to say it is definitely not me that you'll find with his nose in a literature book). My sister reads all of C.S. Lewis's stuff. I mostly just take laaa shortcuts-to-the-quick and dig at a barrel of quotes by the guy. I love more of his philosophic, straight hard think tank books, as opposed to his literature allegories and whatnot, for reasons that he was extraneous when telling stories and stuff and hard to follow the symbolism (such as when I read Till We have Faces, a reworking of Cupid & Psyche to portray christian ideas, morals, and understandings - I couldn't deduce but a slight lick).
Seeing what you replied to Alliyah tho, about unconfessed sin, I didn't catch on to that at all from the way you presented it in your poem. I wish I could tell you how to make that more apparent to the readers... or maybe I never saw it in there bc I don't have any problem with that, I repent every day bc there are certain sins which have plagued me from the days in which I was half dabbling in this world's desires and shorting Him on leading my life solely with the intention that I commit my ways to His Will, and so I always need to clear the air cause I need to be able to find Him and have Him to hold
Today, I'm fortunate to have been such a fool and still be protected by Our Shield. But being a prodigal son for a while has given me more to be valued in my relationship with Him now. Cost me some years of needless griefs and tireless pushing, but now I can do all sorts of things like comfort those who have troubled pasts/regrets/ and wounds. And so what the Old Dragon intended to be my spiky pit of doom, God has totally erased and blotted over, and placed me a homestead on a high mountain of trust and hope. I mean, I've got to experience a lot of supernatural things and miracles from His Hand, so I've had the adventure I looked high and long for, I've had it gifted to me from nowhere else but His chambers of Divine Intervention!! And the breeze is good, and the birds are pretty scenery