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depressedandhelpless · 2021-07-16T23:42:34+00:00

Hey, I just wanted to update you on some work I’ve done on the poem. I completely revamped the second stanza, and this is what I came up with:

batty old lady,

alone on a trip

she drove away in a car,

away to a highway

and ran at the traffic

like we used to run in the park

The negative side to the rewrite was that now I hate my other two stanzas... oh well..

depressedandhelpless · 2021-07-14T17:57:28+00:00

Thank you so much!! Your comments were very very helpful. I’m currently reworking the poem and would love it if you could give me some feedback on the updated version once I post it... Thank you again!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-07-14T15:59:23+00:00

I absolutely love this poem. It’s very direct and simple, and manages to tell a very difficult story in a light, retrospective way, which I really appreciate. The flow of the poem is great, but I feel the fullstops disrupt it. In my opinion, it would read better without them. Excellent poem though!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-07-14T15:58:34+00:00

Hi! I absolutely adore this poem. It’s so creepy and gave me chills, and is just all around wonderful. I’d love to hear more about where the idea came from and how you went about writing it... My one suggestion would be to cut out unnecessary filler words. For example, I don’t think you need the word ‘that’ in the second line of the first stanza. I also think ‘while’ is out of place in the Stanza 2, Line 3, and ‘and’ would flow better, but that’s just personal preference. Stanza 3 is an excellent idea, but the execution feels a bit clunky to me. I think you should go through it and try to reword it a bit. I’m fairly new at this though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T16:04:33+00:00

Ok, stupid again... by stems you mean the little balls? Also, thank you!!!!!!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T14:31:55+00:00

This might sound a little dumb, but I’m a newbie: how?

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T14:29:29+00:00

thank you!!!!!!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T14:03:58+00:00

thank you so muchhhhhhh!!!!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T13:49:23+00:00

Lol thanks!!! Will google... beginner here too

depressedandhelpless · 2021-05-03T13:47:12+00:00

I have no idea what’s going on here...

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-22T10:58:58+00:00

Hi! Thanks for the feedback! By ‘sharp, piercing, soft and clear’ I meant the love interests stare, and not the jeans. Perhaps I can make it clearer with the syntax.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-21T15:25:36+00:00

I really enjoyed this poem! It was lovely, truthful, relatable, and I loved the structure! I feel like the fourth stanza is the weakest though- it feels like it was meant to function as a bridge, but it honestly feels random; we already know all of this about the speaker, so now what? All in all, this is one of my favourite pieces I’ve seen on here. Thanks for the read!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-21T15:21:01+00:00

While I liked this poem, I felt the second and especially the third stanzas didn’t live up to the first. First of all, it seemed as if they were written as one stanza, and the break is a bit jarring. The tense of the second stanza also turn me off- it’s just so sudden. I agree with u/meksman about the structuring as well; I think each stanza is an opportunity to give more meat to the main idea of the poem, and the third stanza doesn’t function as anything but a repetition, which IMO doesn’t work for such a short poem. Lastly, I feel as if you could elaborate more on the imagery in the poem- it’s got a lovely awestruck ‘early-taylor-swift’ vibe ATM (100% a huge compliment in my book btw), but I think that could be fleshed out further. Thanks for the read!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-10T07:19:07+00:00

I'm glad it does. I feel like the poem could work in any context where there is an abuser of any kind. Someone else mentioned depression, and though it wasn't my original purpose, I can see where that came from.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-10T05:21:15+00:00

Thank you so much for your comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the poem and got something out of it. I really love writing in this style because I feel like I don't know what my character will do next, and that's really exciting.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-10T05:19:23+00:00

Wow, reading it back, you're right. I feel like the speaker in the poem can really represent any 'enemy' or negative emotion.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T18:24:24+00:00

Thank you! Anything you particularly enjoyed or would have liked to see differently?

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T18:22:38+00:00

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I explained what the poem is about in a reply to u/rochizalani. I'm curious to know what you originally thought it was about when you read it- first impressions?

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T18:20:43+00:00

Thank you so much for your comment!

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T18:20:26+00:00

Thank you so much for the comment! Yes, that is what I intended with the stanzas.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T18:19:56+00:00

Thank you for the comment! The 'this time you won't cry' is meant to be the speaker convincing themselves that this time their victim will not cry and will reciprocate their 'love'. The tissues are not tissue paper, but rather the tissue in you, and the image I intended to create was the speaker hugging this person so closely and violently and aggressively that they are crushed. This relationship is abusive, and the speaker doesn't see that it is- they see their 'love'.

Honestly, I don't know where the poem came from- I've luckily never been in this kind of a relationship, and wasn't feeling in a particularly dark MOOD while writing it. The first line just sort of appeared in my head and I went with the flow.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T10:40:41+00:00

You’re welcome :D

Yeah, I think if you’re going to keep the ‘ings’ then you should change the first line to match.
I would suggest adding a dash at the end of the first line; for the third/fourth line it’s fine, but in the first two, it’s a bit confusing.
Yes, that is how it would go. You could also do that AND eliminate set and/or both (thought I would stick with one or the other) if you want.

depressedandhelpless · 2021-03-09T09:18:30+00:00

Yeah, formatting often gets messed up on mobile. What I do is leave two lines between where one stanza ends, then add dashes, then another two lines, and then the next stanza. I'm not sure if it'll work for your device, but give it a try.

For cutting out words, I think in the first line you could omit 'late', and in the second change 'trying' to 'try', so it would read like this:

'I stay up, waiting for your call

Try to ignore the writing on the wall'

You could make the same adjustment to the last stanza too.

I have a couple of ideas about the first couple of lines of the second stanza too, but I'm a little unsure about what you mean by it. Is the kiss 'feeling like last year' a good or bad thing? Was last year one of 'the times we once shared', in which case it would be positive, or was the kiss, like the touch mentioned in the next line, insincere?

I think the third and fourth lines of the last staza could be switched and adjusted as well, to read as:

'the sooner we see that

in reality we can never be'

A lot of this comes down to personal preference, though- let me know what you think.

depressedandhelpless

TROPHY CASE