z

Young Writers Society



I Lost my Voice

by myjaspercat


1. I used to laugh, deep and thunderous. It would bubble just below the belly of my diaphragm, desperate to slip between my teeth. It felt so good to laugh. An innocent pleasure I grew so accustomed too I began to take it for granted. And then one day my teeth clenched together, cutting my laugh in half until it begun to sound like muffled hyena chuckles. Sharp, cold, broken. 

2. When I was a kid I saw the entire world ahead of me. Big off ramp signs flashing far into the distance. I believed in magic and Santa and that I could do anything. My biggest fear was losing my quilt-y and having to sleep in the dark all alone.

3. I was smart for being afraid of the dark. Because as soon as night falls and the goddess the moon creeps slowly on tired wisps through the sky, darkness crawls into every crack and corner. And it brings with him a chill that seeps into my bones and every pore until I'm left shivering. 

4. I feel like I'm always shivering now.

5. I used to have a lot to say. Words would just spill out of my mouth like a waterfall, tumbling down my chin and pooling around my feet. But I never noticed how the words became sharper, smaller, more and more distant, until it was too late. Because now, I'm so lucky if I even speak, my ears have grown deaf even to my own voice. 

6. And there's so much I've wanted to say for so long I don't even know if I could make out the letters that spell the words. It's my lack of communication, my lack of expression that seems to be getting me in trouble now… 

7. When I was younger I wore my heart on my sleeve and my feelings on my face. It was so easy to tell if I was happy, or mad, or sad and everything in between. No one was left guessing my true intentions, no one needed me to clarify what I was trying to say. STOP ASKING WHAT I MEAN… please. 

8. Yet, as I grew up my face grew stone cold. I became Medusa but in reverse.

9. I don't know how to tell you I truly love you.

10. I grew up like one of the boys, dirt in one hand and a boxing glove in the other. I was never afraid to run outside, roll in mud or put you in a headlock. I was never a proper lady, I didn't cross my legs in a skirt or curl my hair. And I was ok with that. Ok with who I was. 

11. But now, now I feel insecure in even an oversized tee and sweats. When did I grow up to become this? 

12.When I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up as a kid, I always said a teacher. I just knew that I had the gift of connecting with others. It was a surreal dream.

13. I'm no longer a kid and when someone asks what I want to do with my life, all I can reply with is a nervous chuckle and the word ‘Gone.’

14. I don't have the balls. 

15. So if you ask me what I want to be, I'll just tell you that I want to be doctor. I want to be a writer. I want to be a friend. A savior to the broken. Because I lost my voice and now I lie in bed and cry almost every night cause I don't know where it went or how to get it back. So if you ask me what I want to be, I'll just say ‘whatever you want me to be.’

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Sun Sep 30, 2018 6:34 pm
niteowl wrote a review...



Hi there myjaspercat! Niteowl here to leave a quick review.

Overall, I think this would work well as a spoken word poem. It has good imagery and is really relatable, covering the topics of growing up and finding fear and losing touch with your youthful optimism. I'm not sure if the numbers really add anything, since this doesn't really feel like a list.

Because as soon as night falls and the goddess the moon creeps slowly on tired wisps through the sky, darkness crawls into every crack and corner.


I assume you meant "the goddess of the moon", but personally I would just say "the moon" because I think the focus of this sentence should be the darkness, and thinking about a moon goddess takes away from that a little.

It's my lack of communication, my lack of expression that seems to be getting me in trouble now…


I think this sentence would make more sense in part 7, before "Stop asking what I mean...please."

9. I don't know how to tell you I truly love you.



This feels out of place, as there's no "you" in the rest of the poem and it doesn't really fit with the overall theme.

13. I'm no longer a kid and when someone asks what I want to do with my life, all I can reply with is a nervous chuckle and the word ‘Gone.’


This doesn't make sense as written. You want to do "Gone" with your life? Some grammatical tweaking could make this work, like maybe the speaker wants to be gone, or disappear.

14. I don't have the balls.



This point feels too unclear to stand on its own, as I'm somewhat uncertain what it's referring to. I'm guessing it's #13 , like she wants to say "Gone" but doesn't have the balls. But again, I'm not sure.

So if you ask me what I want to be, I'll just tell you that I want to be doctor. I want to be a writer. I want to be a friend. A savior to the broken.


This sounds more like what an optimistic child would say than a jaded young adult. It also sounds too certain for someone who claims to have lost their voice. I would make the next sentence the 14th point and then round out the whole poem with the last sentence because I think that would be a little more powerful.

Overall, this is really good. I just had a few tweaks to suggest. Keep writing! :D




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Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:59 pm
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AutoPilot wrote a review...



This is absolutely fantastic and I have no idea how to properly review it, but i am going to attempt to anyway.

To begin with, I'm a huge a fan of spoken word poetry. It's one thing to read it, to pick up on-or completely miss- the emotions the author is trying to instill in you with their written words. It's one thing to try and accept the feelings they're pushing your way, eager to get out of their hands and into the world. It's one thing to try and understand their story without seeing their face as they're telling it, without being able to watch their face and see the anxious smile as they spill the fragments of their hearts out of their palms and into your eyes, braced wide open to take in every detail. And maybe that's why I cry when I read poetry, I think they get caught under my eyelids and stay there until my brain tries to wash them away. It's entirely another thing when the writer vocalizes it. When they tell it the way they want it to be heard. When you hear their voice crack on the word heart because theirs breaks every time they think about it. It's another to hear their voice hitch and swing back at the past because it is still fighting to stay the present.

Anyway, if you can't tell, I love spoken word poetry. I'm currently obsessed with Neil Hilborn, and other artists like him. Now, onto my more formal review.

Format

Obviously, format is one of the most fluid, none-standardized parts of poetry. I mean sure, you can fall into an AA BB CC scheme or make every verse exactly seven well articulated syllables that bark themselves into oblivion, but if you write outside that? You take away all the determining factors and it is completely your own. It's just another reason I love spoken word poetry, each work is like a flash fiction filled with feeling, and it's amazing. Your format is very fluid, and like KnightTeen, it feels jerky when I'm reading it because of the numbered points. But, if when you read it each number is a declaration you start each section with, it makes sense and I love it.

Speeling, Gramm'r, and Punctuation;

There are no spelling mistakes, so good job there! Your grammar is impeccable. And Your punctuation is used perfectly.

Overall Opinion

I realllyyyy love this, you did a good job. I struggle with depression and anxiety, along with a couple other things, so I very much understand what you've written here. I really didn't plan to get this far, so everything just feels like a deleted scene that the screenwriters decided to use anyway, and now I'm lost. But anyway, you show this extremely well, and I'm super impressed with your poem. I wish you great success is your spoken word poetical endeavors

Best of luck and keep on writing, Autopilot




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Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:47 pm
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KnightTeen wrote a review...



WOW. That's all I can really say. WOW.

I'm studying poetry this month in college, and for our exam over the chapter our teacher is making us do spoken word. This piece is so powerful, and as I read it I sort of imagined you in front of me actually preforming it. The words flowed really well together, and your imagery is on point.

As for the actual content of the poem, it touched me on a personal level. I've been dealing with depression for many years now, and as a part of my condition I go through periods where I literally cannot write or speak or sometimes even move. I just felt as if you were plucking thoughts that I've had in the past from my head and putting them down on paper, articulating them in ways that I can't.

The only thing I can really critique is the presence of the numbers. They kind of stopped me from reading whenever I came to one and created this necessary pause that interrupted the flow of the piece. But that's the only negative thing I have to say.

Well done.




myjaspercat says...


Thank you so much, I'm glad you found a beauty in my piece and were able to relate to it.




This is a message to all you out there. You don't have to be the fastest writer. You don't have to write 2000 words in one sitting. But if you put your mind to it and really love your project, you can and will get further along than you ever thought possible.
— FireEyes