They Had No Idea

Willow C. Here.
I aplolgize in advance for my personality.
Dang I really need a new opening.

Anywho. As always I will begin with the title... A bit dramatic, isn't it? I mean I know it's a poem about a suicidal girl, but... Eh, you can do better. You see potential audience is the basis of my thought. Seventy percent write the poem, sixteen percent write the title. If you don't know the other fourteen percent, then you are definately NOT a memeber of the Fantastic Four. Anywho, never underestimate the title. I could write a brilliant book about a chair who learns how to deal with the stress of being sat on by a very large man, and then gets a new owner, a little girl named Sophia Grettle. But no one will read it if I named it "It hurt so bad." Creativity is spectacular. Don't go writing a fantastic poem, and then name it something so ordinary. I'm pretty sure I've seen that in novel form, and it was written by Sarah Dessan. Try something the perspective audience can relate to. "The smiles were fake", or "Underneath all that...", etc.

Secondly, loved the poem. Absolutely fantastic. It perfectly portarys what a struggling poet would write as their note for their suicide. Lovely. Or it's like one of thise movies where you see why the villian became the villian.

Nice poem, over dramatic name. Good luck on your next piece.
-Willow

Since your main concern is cliche, I'll address that.

I like the cake image--I think that one's not cliched at all (although admittedly I don't read a ton of suicide poems). Plus the idea of blowing out candles on a birthday cake is simultaneously similar to (snuffing something out) and at odds with (happy occasion vs depression) the idea of suicide.

I think "sadness spinning in my mind" is a bit cliche, but you might be able to fix that if you just reword it to make it a more concrete image. But don't use a tornado, because that's probably *more* cliched than just "spinning."

Also the "tears unshed and words unspoken" "behind my smile" is a little cliche.

In addition to the cake image, I like the little rhyme you have in the first two stanzas--it's just barely there, almost not noticeable but giving a bit of a lyrical feel to the poem. You kind of lose it in the last two stanzas, though--your vowels are the same in the second and fourth lines of each stanza, but the consonants are so far off that the words don't quite work as even near rhymes. However, because the rhymes in the first two stanzas are so subtle, it isn't jarring when you lose the rhyme, so that might be okay. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Blue

Hey!
I think you have a nice piece here. If you add more detail and make the poem a bit more longer this can be a really great poem. Keep the format you have! The way you formatted the poem and the repetition in the stanzas is what caught my eye and made me continue reading. I would of liked your poem more if you had more descriptive words that would create a picture in my head. Replacing words such as "blew", "sadness", "spinning", and "sweet" can really add more detail to your poem. Continue writing! This poem just needs a little more spice to it, other than that you did great!

I think this is off to a good start and I like it, but in order to pull this topic off, we need to individualize the poem.

Go to an online thesaurus and replace words such as sadness, sweet, green, unshed, and spinning. Vocabulary sometimes has a way of spicing up a sentence.

From the way you write this, you have told me what is happening, but I could never actually see what was happening. I think you could brainstorm some interesting visuals. examples would be of the girl leaning over the cake, hair draped over her face to hide her apathy towards the event. Or you could elaborate the description of her smile. Is it strained, uneasy, or simple? How does it alter the rest of her face?

Your use of repetition and stanza placement automatically made the poem inviting. You have a nice piece going here. I hope this helped, and keep writing!

Hey. You're not alone. Many people are suicidal, but there's always a solution to your problems. It might take time to find it but there's always a solution. Many people love you. Think about how heartbroken they might be if you left them for good. Don't hurt yourself or commit suicide. Talk to someone about it. Be strong<3