Published September 10, 2011
Do you see, in the corner of the room,
that kid gazing out the window,
there eyes listless and their hearts
determined to give up?
Do you see that pale girl,
who shrouds her feelings
in a thick layer of mascara
and so many cuts upon her arm?
Do you see that chubby guy,
who has weed in his pocket
and Big Macs in his stomach,
as he sits on the curb?
And what about the quiet kid,
who loses themself in books
to escape their dad's yells
and their mom's bruises
and the wrath of bullies?
Do you see the thoughts
swirling in their head?
The escape plans?
If you do, do you say
anything?
Try.
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141,726 Literary Works • 675,618 Reviews
Hello, Paintingtherain97!
I, like the users above me, liked your message. I've been wanting to write something to this effect for a while. You have a good idea here, but your approach seems a little to....in the middle for me. There are times when you let the reader jump to their own conclusions, and other times that you spell it out for them. Normally, I like consistency with this matter. Either commit to being artistically vague or really detailed.
The major grammatical error I saw was that your subjects didn't always agree with your genitive pronouns.
"That kid" is a singular subject, but "their" is a plural genitive pronoun. Technically, "their" should be "his or her," but for the sake of flow, you can just pick one gender. They're scattered throughout the piece, but I'll let you go through and edit for them.
This ending was a little too abrupt for me. Maybe you could expand on it a bit and really add impact to your message. And I've never been a big fan of a series of rhetorical questions. When you have too many questions in a row, you're reader tends to skim over the sentence to the question mark.
Overall, you have a great start here. Good luck with it.
-Sea-
Hey paintingtherain97,
This was great. Really, it was. I can tell you're very passionate about youth issues (so am I) and speaking up and doing something. This is a great source to fuel your writing, and you're using writing to educate and spark change which I think is nothing but awesome.
DaughterofEvil has already pointed out to be aware of your grammar and spelling, and I'm with her on this. Once you feel you have delivered your message in the poem, I'd suggest just to have a read over it to edit and iron it out.
Otherwise, awesome stuff. We need more people like you to use writing and other forms of creativity to spark change and get awareness of this stuff across! I know we'll see amazing stuff from you in the future.
Miyakko.
I see your message clearly, however....there were honestly so many spelling errors that it completely distracted me from the moral of your piece. I did not like this piece for that reason, but liked it, again, because of the message you were trying to convey. However....I think there are some things you should learn not to assume. The girl with "so many cuts on her arm" may be the most cheerful girl you know. The boy with obsessive eating disorder/bullimia may be one of the "cool guys", so he stays thin. And the kid reading books to escape from his world may not just be reading to get away from the bullies, but also his father who whips him every night when he comes home. I'm just saying...you can never assume things like that. Anyway, happy writing!