Guilty

by elfin12

Published April 21, 2012

I watched you pour your heart out
To a girl pretending she cared
When really she was in the back room
With sealed lips, thinking you were spared
 
But you only fell more
As she grew farther apart
With me on the sidelines wishing
She could get out the words on her heart
 
You gave her your name
And she couldn’t refuse
‘Cuz underneath that smile of yours
Was a boy broken and used
 
She thought she could love you
Take her time to learn more
But the clock’s ticking faster
It’s not you she yearns for
 
I’ve been waiting for her to move on
Break your heart so you’re not hurt
It’s too late now
But I’ll be on the alert
 
Comments & reviews · 2
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Kale
Review
Kale wrote a review Review · May 15, 2012

When really she was in the back room
With sealed lips, thinking you were spared

Spared what? Right now, these two lines don't make much sense grammatically, and there's no clear implication of what "you" was spared from. As a result, the cared/spared rhyme feels extremely forced, especially since the rhythms of the rhyming lines does not match up.

Rhyme is based on patterns and is an extension of rhythm. If there is no clear pattern in the rhythm, the rhymes will fall flat. Throughout this poem, you have an inconsistent rhythm, which sabotages the rhyming, which in turn detracts from the poem.

Poems do not have to rhyme. Some poems work better without rhymes; this may be one of them.

If you do wish to keep this a rhyming poem though, you'll need to work on the rhythm. There are a couple of articles in the KB you might find particularly helpful: Hannah's article on Poetic Devices and Lumi's on Iambic Pentameter.

Rhymes cannot stand alone and require a strong rhythm to work. A strong rhythm, on the other hand, does not need a rhyme, so there's no need to force rhyming.

User avatar
soccerstar17
Comment
soccerstar17 commented Comment · Apr 21, 2012

Nicely written, I really like the flow of it! Depressing and slightly chilling, yet I like it a lot :)

Thanks!



I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice.
— Roald Dahl