I hear them talking in the hall
She says something
"The Big C" in a whisper
Like the walls aren't thin.
"Not yet," she says
Not yet
But a possibility soon.
She won't take care of it,
Just like my father
Who's skin on his nose has been dying
For years before I knew it was there.
"Money's thin," they agree
Too thin to use
For such trivial things like their health.
They'd rather sell their lives
For a little more cash in their back pocket.
Darkness, like a cancer, spreads
Over my world, cast like a heavy net.
The disappointment was always there, sure
Hints of it here and there
But they don't eve bother hiding it anymore
It's in their faces, their words
When they ask what makes music more important than school
I have failed everyone else,
Everything else,
But the notes on the page.
They stay
People go, but the music never changes
I'm not myself when I play
I'm purely a vessel
I can be filled with a sweet, joyful sound
The way my world used to be before.
They ask me, "Why don't you just try anymore?"
Try?
They don't understand
I am trying
It's not working.
There's a wall
A
Big
Wall
And I try to knock it down
Try, Try, Try
And the failures stack up
Brick by brick
Making the wall higher than it was.
And I can't help but to feel
That, one day, it'll crumble
And bury me alive
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141,750 Literary Works • 675,678 Reviews
Hey there, OniiChan here!
Great poem about people worrying about money. One of the things I noticed is how you organized the lines. You did very well on doing that. The flow of the poem feels very natural. The only thing I have to say on the negative side is that you had a few issues with punctuation here and there. Not a big problem, though! You did great.
Keep on writing!
Radrook here to give feedback. No offense intended. If indeed I do offend, you have my apologies. That having been said:
I like the way that this poem uses a wall to indicate both a distance and an obstacle. Also the traditional use of “darkness” and the comparison of it to a net is nice. Not sure what dying skin on a father’;s nose means exactly in this context. The only image I got was of Pinochio’s nose growing each time he lied. It made me pause to try to figure out what was meant.
The title momentarily made me expect poetry where the writer wanders and writes down whatever comes to his mind. However this poem isn't in that category. It very coherently describes two people who place money above their health, and are very critical of the speaker's musical ambitions. This brings darkness, or unhappiness to his or her life.
Suggestion
Their demands that school be given priority over music are described as unjust. But the demand didn’t seem that way to me. Why? well, because any good parent would want school to take precedence over music if they conflict with each other. The speaker’s irate attitude towards their reasonable expectation has a serious effect on how a thinking reader views all other claims.
In short, it reduces trust in the speaker’s honesty or judgment. After all, a person who proves irrational in such an area will usually be so in others. So maybe the school vs music needs to be modfied so that the parents clearly are being unjust in their demands and expectations.
Capitalization of every first letter of every new line interfered with the flow when I tried to read it. I think usual capitalization used in prose would be better.
For a little more cash in their back pocket
[....for a little more cash in their back pockets.]
I hear them talking in the hall[.]
All in all a very interesting read.