Young Writers Society

Wow!!! I really feel we write our best when we feel what we write. This piece too, however it is, is a masterpiece.

Hey there! Anne here for a review. Okay so first of all, this poem is a bit too relatable to me, more to my past self actually, I didn't like my face at all- it was full of pimples, enlarged nose, not so feminine eyebrows- all I thought was I could be the ugliest of people I know. I even hated my legs, they seemed too muscular to beling to a girl. I have the athletic built you sew, muscles here and there that most girly girls don't have.
It wasa very vulnerable time.
But it was a very small period for me, of which I'm grateful to god. I'm a high schooler now, thanks to the lockdown I was able to change the way I look at these things before they had a chance to get really nasty. Whenever I smile in the mirror now, my imperfections seem to make me perfect, I love how beautiful I feel. Due to incidents happening in my life- I had over exerted my thighs once, so that I couldn't walk or sit comfortably for two long weeks- that I actually began to value my big, fat thighs. I grew comfortable in my skin.. And I hope you would too. For me, now, morales matter more than looks. And I'm grateful to god to give me a not so beautiful face because now when I look at other people, I don't judge them based on their looks. My face taught that to me.

Now coming back to your poem, I will go stanza wise.

i don’t like myself

there’s nothing good about me

everyone always moves on

one way or another

i don’t like my body

it has no shape

probably due to an eating disorder

that took over everything

~~~

i don’t like my face

the features don’t match

mirrors are my enemy

i wish they would all crack

i don’t like my personality

i’m much too loud

i speak my mind too often

but nobody seems to hear

i don’t like my thoughts

they take up too much of my time

it consumes my mind

all the possibilities racing through my head

even though i hate myself

i try my best to please others

the mask comes off at night

i become vulnerable

Hello, Harper. I guess I'll say what I think about this and I would first like to say that I identify with this poem quite a bit. I personally felt there was nothing to like about myself, nothing worth to stay alive for. That was mostly due to depression and anxiety. I too thought that restrictive eating was the way to happiness but as I know now it isn't. But no matter how hard I was suffering, I was there to help others. I frankly didn't care about myself, I only did things for others, and that lead to an emotionally abusive relationship.
But I would like to say, it is not bad to not like things about yourself. If you handle the way you try to change them carefully, you can become a better person. Everyone says, "Be proud of who you are," they are only saying, "You are stuck with what you are." You can change the things you don't like. You just need to make sure you aren't taking things to the extreme.
Your first stanza really hit me. "Everyone else moves on, one way or another," as a person with autism I see people move on from things so quickly but I cannot do that. And having low self-esteem didn't make letting things go any easier. And your view on your personality reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom. I kept asking her if I talked too much and if I'm weird and if you personality was too much. She only said the things she thought I wanted to hear (the positive things) but I wanted the truth and I didn't know if I got it. I don't have a sense of self so social cues and social interactions are not a strong suit of mine and I want to improve on that.
Paranoia is a daily struggle. I don't talk on the phone because I can't see if the person is getting bored of my talking. And making reviews is a struggle for me because I think the person I am reviewing will think I am mental or I say too much. Being stuck in your own thoughts can be an escape but not a good one. You can escape the real struggles of the world by going into your mind, but you come up with worse scenarios in your head and you can't escape it.
But I want to tell you some truth, life is awful and it is only going to get worse. It's a sad fact. But I try to look for things that make me happy. Even the small things. I have a happiness jar where I write anything that made me happy and at the end of the year I read about what happened that year. You can do it or not but it was just a thought. And I believe that one day you will accept yourself, but still improve. And if you want to help others in your life, you have to learn how to care for yourself.
Beautiful work <3
Anyway byeeee!

The rhyme you used here helps a lot with flow that you break at points like I become vulnerable. You should try to remove the rhyme or make the whole poem rhyme. It would read easier. Also, points for not making it sound happy even though it rhymed. Hope you feel better. Silented.

I know how you feel. For the past couple of months (I guess it's better now) I dealt with restrictive eating, and thought I was happy with the results. That was not the case, and I found myself becoming less and less sure of the person I was.
I know what it means to be disatisfied with yourself and look over the damage you've done and feel like crap. I can't point out a specific line..it's just everything.

I really hope you start feeling better about yourself. You're totally worth being loved by yourself and the others around you.

-mintyleaf

You might expect an uplifting review, but the first thing I have to say to you is you’re wrong. You don’t take what you can get. I wish I could see your face as you wrote this, so I could say that Harry Styles would be lucky to have you.
It’s absolutely been true for me that everyone leaves. It sucks worse than body image. Someone told me that some of them will come to love me in the end and that we’ll be together. I hope that's how your story goes.
I had a crap body. How old are you? As I got older (and forced myself to body build) I started looking a lot better. My waist, arms and legs are still way too small. But these days I can say I’m satisfied.
My face is a different story. The moles, the crooked teeth, discolored, lopsided eyes, chubby cheeks and oversized nose will never go away. It is as excessively good people have given me more love than I deserved that the light in my eyes came to overwhelm all the yuck. They left, but the light stayed.
It’s okay to hate yourself, and healthy to let yourself feel however you feel, but change is possible, don’t give up.
I too am too loud. Everybody is at some point, I think. It’s a matter of culture. My family is the loudest, whiniest, most annoying family on the planet, and because I live with them, I naturally act the same. It sucks to see yourself change for the better in others' presence, only to lose that quickly when you go home. I am learning to embrace whichever culture is present, as one does naturally, but it’s not about you. There isn’t something about you that makes you annoying, fundamentally, it’s just that you are accustomed to your culture above others, and others want something different. Seek to satisfy their wants. Who you are has more to do with what you want than how you behave.
Thoughts are awful. I have severe anxiety. Especially since the people I love most ignore me, the people I’m supposed to love hate me, and the people who are supposed to love me find me disgusting. Yikes. On the other hand, I love myself, because I know what others don’t know. I know who I am, that I truly love some, and seek after the beautiful and lovely in life. I also understand them, that they only abuse me because they think they know better. If you want to be happy, forget knowing better. Read Howard’s End, a great old timey book that addresses this artfully. I am loved by God. I will share with you what I shared with a friend of mine with struggles similar to yours:
I said, “You’re a type of person that is easy to love, but regardless, I know what you mean. Especially in our culture, every flaw seems to condemn us in the eyes of others, and of our God. But the truth is so different. God truly loves us. He wants to be with us because we are special and love him deeply, even if we don’t remember as much. He looks at us while we are here on earth and envisions how beautiful we will be as gods and goddesses, and he can’t wait anymore than we can. In his wisdom he lets us assume this flawed flesh so that we may overcome darkness like he did. So that we can do the same for our posterity in the eternities. His favorites all pushed through the darkest of feelings. Many begged to be relieved from the burden of mortality. More were hated and abused. But no longer. They rest with God, basking in his love and that of their friends and family, waiting eagerly for us to join them. We can do it, and heaven knows that we will.”
This pulls on a number of deep, and sometimes controversial, Christian doctrines, but I strongly believe every word. I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I would be happy to discuss any questions you have concerning what I believe.
My talents are questionable. I sing, dance, and produce music. Sometimes people tell me it’s good. Sometimes people are just polite, or try to be sneaky and genuinely praise something while hating the bigger picture. I haven’t uploaded anything because I don’t think people would like my music. And I wouldn’t blame them.
Thoughts can be crippling. It’s okay to think thoughts, but believe what is good. People constantly provide encouragement in today’s culture, but only if you believe the best of things can you come to understand their truths and live them.
Find someone who deserves your trust. It can be a friend or a far away acquaintance who can never share your secrets or try to ‘help’ you. Tell them everything. They can help you. Prayer is like this, but I like more feedback sometimes.
I totally get the overdramatic bit. It’s okay to be overdramatic. Melodrama comes from paranoia. I don’t mean that to be rude. I am paranoid. Everyone is paranoid because we don’t know our futures. The truth is, the world is a lot less dangerous than we make it out to be. If I failed a class right now, I could probably still make it into college. Instead I stress out, procrastinate, then stress out some more, and when I finally get around to doing it, I’m so overwhelmed that it takes an hour to get through a problem. I had an experience this summer. I met my soulmate. Her and her family love me with all their hearts. They aren’t afraid of anything. Practical, but optimistic. An example of this, is that they let their kids bike down some back roads to the dollar store to buy stuff with their allowance. They let me drive around the neighborhood in their car, even though they know I speed and don’t have a license. They even know I let the kids hang out the windows and steer. They also know I love their kids, and want desperately to keep them safe. To be thorough, I should say that when the stakes rise, they are far more careful. I biked with their 7 year old daughter to the park because she wanted to go and didn’t want to wait for her brothers and our friends. I was uncomfortable at first, but convinced myself to go because I knew myself to be paranoid. So we went, played for a few minutes, and then I guessed that the others weren’t coming after all, so we headed back. We take a shortcut that avoids most of the roads, and when we emerge therefrom, her dad was driving by. He stopped, hotly put her and her bike in the car and told me to head back myself. I was terrified that I had done something terrible, and that he wouldn’t let me stay. I came in, the epitome of humility, because I loved him and would respect his command, but would be devastated by condemnation. As I could have guessed, I was called up to his office a few minutes after making it back to their house, but he surprised me with the look in his eyes. He was not terrible or meek, but strong and gentle. Neither of us explained much, but he told me how he had been worried, and doubly so by the time he had seen the park empty. He commanded me to “put my dad hat on.” I was understood and appreciated but not entirely approved of. Wow.
Just to be clear, it is the seven year old's older sister that I’m into.
If I had killed myself a decade ago, I would never have found true love. Push through for the mystery soulmate in your future if you have to. Don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope. And above all, don’t lose that light you have, that you show just by wanting to be loved. You love someone, even if you haven’t met them yet. Maybe you dream about them. Maybe you read books and think, I want someone to love me like that. Become the person you want to marry, and your soulmate will come to you, even if it takes four years like it did for me.