In the beginning I thought I had control but control is an illusion My choice is an illusion And my world is an illusion My world is a prison A prison I have created in the darkest depths of my mind. A physical and emotional place I can not escape. My body aches, my mind throbs, and everything in me tells me to drink The poison is strong it consumes my mind, my body, my soul my days go black, they disappear, and for a while I am nothing at all No pain, no hunger, no death when I wake up I'm being told I am a failure I am pushed, I am pulled I am hurt, I am scared but I can not escape It is a never-ending cycle It is a never-ending battle It is a prison and I have the key But the poison is strong and my heart was weak I can not escape I can not win I did not want this I was happy I was strong Now I am just a shadow A shattered shadow with a shattered heart in a prison I can not escape
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138,973 Literary Works • 672,387 Reviews
Hey Ash! First off, welcome to Young Writers Society!
Glad to see you're already posting on the site, if you need any help navigating the site or ever want to talk about poetry or reviewing feel free to send a message my way. -- Always happy to help out a fellow poet.
Anyways, on to the review!
The language you use in this poem has a lot of intensity and that tone carries through the whole poem.
The very first stanza actually seemed pretty philosophical which is an interesting framework to have in poetry, but I like the questioning and that the questions have a thread of relation to them too.
After the first stanza you do a good job of using this extended prison metaphor to describe the speaker's feelings. It's clear and the metaphor makes sense. My main critique is I'd love to see a little bit more specific imagery here. Rather than describing generically what it means to be a prisoner trapped in the prison of reality or of the mind, maybe try to tackle describing specifically what it feels like.
For instance rather than just saying that poison is strong, you can take it a step further, get specific -- is the poison acidic? does it burn the person's throat? -- details like this generically mean the same thing as "the poison is strong" but give the reader a clearer picture and give a poem it's unique character.
I think the poem's flow could be improved by making the line-lengths more consistent. This would also make the poem more polished on the page. Here's some tips for formatting poetry on YWS if you need it: How to Format Poetry .
I interpreted this poem as describing a person who feels like they're trapped in their life and that all the pains of the world add on to this. This is a really overwhelming and scary description for the world. But the poem does it's job in communicating that feeling clearly. Nice work!
I hope this review was helpful, please let me know if you have any questions about the review!
~alliyah
Hey ashpandas! Welcome to YWS! My name is Kara and I'm here for a (hopefully) quick review!
In the beginning I thought I had control
First of all, nice job on posting the 100,000th work on YWS!! Amazing!
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
{B}ut control is an illusion
My choice {is} an illusion {the rest of the lines are "is," not "was"}
My world is an illusion
My world is a prison
A prison I have created in the darkest depths of my mind
.{Add a new line here. It won't take away from the flow}A physical and emotional place that I can not escape
.My body aches, my mind throbs, and everything in me tells me to drink
The poison is strong
{I}t consumes my mind, my body, my soul
{M}y days go black, they disappear,
andfor a while I am nothing at allNo pain, no hunger, no death {I would change "death" to "hurt" or something like that. "death" doesn't feel right to me in that line}
Then{W}hen I wake up I'm being told {I'm} a failureI am pushed, I am pulled
I am hurt, I am scared
but
I cannot escape {"can not" is spelled "cannot"}
It is a never-ending cycle
It is a never-ending battle
It is a prison
{But} I have the key {How do you have a key to a prison you can't get out of?}
But the poison is strong
{A}nd my heart was weak
I can not escape
I can not win
I did not want this
I was happy
I was strong
Now I am just a shadow
A shattered shadow with a shattered heart
{I}n a prison
{That} I can not escape
Overall, this is pretty good. A few flow issues, and one confusing thing, but I'm assuming this is your first work on here so that doesn't surprise me. Tell me, why did you use small-caps? I'm just wondering
Why haven’t you given me your soul yet? --
Kara
Interesting Poem!
I cannot relate but I am pretty sure that some individuals can.
Its title was short but suited this poem well.
I definitely liked the language you used as it made me tell what this poem is about very quickly.
This was just a quick little thing as I couldn't think of anything else to write.
Good poem!
I rate it 8/10!