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YOU AND I
I scream.
you cry.
We are lost in these lies.
Sometimes we try, but it’s never for life.
I might dream at night, but it all lacks light.
The darkest of skies, keeping us tied.
A shiver down my spine,
as I meet your eyes.
Words go drip
They’re full of our shit.
Demons creep out from every corner.
OH THE HORROR
Block out the sun. Put the spotlight on me. Everything I hate.
All in one place;
just you just me
The sea of agony.
mourning this moment of eternity.
Where all I want to do… is get away from, me.
Your voice your choice showing up like this
Accusations
Never having Patience
deep in debt with that witch you wed
no excuse
no excuse
it’s all on you.
Just us two? Makes me blue.
Thanks? I guess.
For nothing new.
Just another day
Oh sure, feel free, to act that way.
I can’t I won’t
ever
let you stay.
Just walk away. I don’t you want you.
But, right here, right now, I can’t figure it out.
What’s this pain? Why this place? How do we face?
There’s no escape.
I Scream You Cry
We are still lost in denial.
My only regret? Not hitting you then.
Your words cut me deep
I’m bleeding
I’m week
Ever since then, I haven’t had sleep.
E V E R Y N I G H T
in my dreams.
I’m chased, down the street.
Fear for my life.
People ask me.
W H Y ?
How could I be honest?
When it’s adult who lies.
Put up your front. Tell people you’re sane.
With just a glimpse at our picture, I’m the one who’s deranged.
Jena,
YOU’RE CRAZY, your dad is SO COOL!
He acts like a kid. He never finished school.
you people.
you fools.
you all lack knowledge
There are D R U G S in his system.
Maybe they’ll teach you in college.
not me.
…
not us.
…
I grew up with the stuff.
It’s an enigma to me, how he is still not in cuffs.
As if substance abuse wasn’t enough?
He.
Threatened.
To.
Kill.
Us.
To C U T us to pieces.
you can’t blame diseases.
when you
D E N Y and D E F Y
Not wanting the treatment.
that could save you and I.
They took you that night.
I thought you would die.
Between the look in your eyes.
and the family tree you defiled.
I’m truly not sure
if I would have
cried or have smiled.
+
I’m evil and mean.
I know what you think
A brainwashed, bitch.
who slits her wrist.
But,
you don’t know.
you don’t know me.
The pain
that you caused
The lessons you teach.
I’m really not sure, who I want
Deceased.
Me?
Or you?
Either way, it’s not new.
The hate that you showed me,
so sneaky
so cruel
left me confused
because I wanted love too.
maybe I had it.
but just never knew
you confused me a lot, with your strung out mood.
either way, I just don’t understand
as a small child,
how could you choose drugs over me?
Those insults you told me?
The life that you chose?
letting us all live, in a broken-up Home?
Tears and Fears
Collect, at my feet.
bubbling up, till we’ve drowned in defeat.
Forget what you’ve heard.
There’s no cure.
Torment and abuse
Hang around my Neck like a noose.
as time passes it pulls tighter
my body gets l i g h t e r
I should’ve spoke up
But,
speaking is hard when you’re choking so much.
What’s the sense of sadness?
Keeping me quiet, while I try my new diet.
no food.
no friends.
Just wasting away
Guilt keeps me full.
There’s nothing to say.
you’ve helped make this pain, now I’m never the same.
dark past.
your grasp.
keeps me here in this place
Despite us we are like this
using our vices.
Just a new way, to keep
D E P R E S S I O N
at bay.
See? Here’s where we are different, and no more the same.
I went to treatment.
I still sulk in the pain.
BUT
I never let drugs take over my brain.
You neglect
and reject
all the help that you get
RECOVERY IS HARD
For both of us!
Yes!
But, you never did try.
You’d only protest
broken voice
no noise
in this body of shame
You taught me well,
To hate my own name.
I will never let you in because of the sins.
+
I may never swim
but that’s not a crime!
Look in my eyes when you devalue my life.
It’s something I chose.
To let go.
team up with him push me to win but on the way, you both bathed me in flames.
not like a phoenix,
that rises from fire,
but like black coals: dead no soul.
talking me down.
push me, I drown
“don’t let her get fatter”
but I guess it’s, OK?
when I’m part of your ladder.
climb to the top.
where nothing else matters.
days get sadder,
deep in these thoughts, I’m remembering chatter.
Never worth much
when you’re beaten and battered.
not physically no
but emotionally so.
the pain you both caused… a personal blow.
keeping it hidden, the past is unwritten.
You always to lie so don’t even try.
at least when I cry, my reasons are right.
you’re a savage fool
but do you know what’s true?
strange as it seems,
I can lie too.
those words that say
“Dad I love you.”
they may weigh a ton
but,
they are empty and dumb.
Why should I love you?
You grotesque Scum.
I’m sorry!
That thought, was one I caught,
unable to say, without feeling
Dismay.
I should never be mean
I learned that from you.
even outside of dreams, we bicker and break.
I am unable to take, any more, for your sake.
we may be related.
and for that I am a s h a m e d.
+
I no longer want to play these games.
Fill in the rolls
Try to play house.
I guess it gets easier?
when you marry new spouse.
had a few kids
just to bring us around, babysit and you’ll even pay for it.
Is that how much those kids are worth?
More than all 3 of us?
In the child support you neglected to pay mom.
no doubt it’s a game, because it’s always the same.
the pain,
r e m a i n s
and you keep me in chains.
I may never stay sane
I will always recall
the past and the present
the feelings involved
locked away horrors
Clawing at doors
released in the world shot by denial
no one allowed to reconcile.
dagger dug deep in my mental peace.
piercing like needles … no high for me.
only losses of weight.
Feelings negate.
I don’t want to feel.
I don’t want to taste.
take me away, away from this place.
I want to go far.
I need to escape
Was there ever a time?
When life wasn’t so hard?
when I could sleep through the night?
without waking up scared.
without panic a-new?
or allow me just once,
a moment so blessed
when I look in the mirror,
I don’t eschew with distress
I thought,
if I starved.
Lost ALL my weight.
I could either:
like my own body or disappear without a trace
I figure
dying slowly
was how I should go.
I needed to.
Suffer and sink so low.
I did not intend
to survive
to grow
what else can I say?
except I’m a s h a m e d of all
that I’ve done.
my behavior.
my decay.
+
one time, in high school
before it got bad
a boy I knew made a comment
so Sharp
he cut with his words.
and forever left a mark.
he told me
People who carve out their skin
will do so solely
for need of attention
he said how the blade steel and cold
cut horizontally
the person with live to grow old
but when they come vertically
they’re ready to die
now the same guy, despite his small size
reinforced my father.
and his ugly lies.
he wrote up a story in English that week
of a prostitute,
My
N A M E
who sucked dick for money.
the kids in my class, they thought it was funny.
but s i x years later,
at the age of
T W E N T Y
A man held my hips down
like a pot of honey.
don’t mistake me for your playboy bunny
I mean
I used to play with boys
and
I still sleep with my stuffed Bunny
but if I’m being honest, that’s the extent of the analogy.
Andin the the past 11 years,
I’ve been homeless,
not once,
but twice,
Both at the hands
of a M A N ‘S
demands.
let me be free.
back up to Heaven.
go back down to hell.
and my body become one
with where my mind Dwells.
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Hi, Jena
This is an explosive, visceral poem with real potential. Before I get to specifics, though, I should tell you I am not an experienced reader of free verse, nor have I had at all the kind of life your poem describes. (I assume for this critique that you are writing autobiographically; i.e., that this is not a fictional situation.)
You have a good ear for rhythm and sonority. I especially like the way you use rhyme and half-rhyme at the start: those relentless long I sounds make a great metaphor for the repetitiveness and inescapability of the situation. (I actually think there are moments in the poem that you might return to extended repetition / variation of this same extent.)
You also have a notable ability to relate your dad’s constant disparagement and disrespect (to say nothing of physical threats) to your own lack of self-respect and -esteem. Should you maybe consider adding some vivid detail illustrating one or two minor (comparatively mild) examples of his behavior, to throw the big things into greater relief and expand the panorama of misery? Or maybe a clear comparison / contrast with how he treats others? (For example: Why do your contemporaries find him so cool? Is there an element of charm in his persona that makes all the negativity seem even worse?) I also admire, just past the middle of the poem, your expression of ambivalence, or better, the wishing an expression of love on your part could be genuine.
A word usage I really liked was “dug” as a past participle in “dagger dug deep ...” That’s digging!
I want to pass now to a few criticisms—more things for you to consider than complaints.
1) I find the unusual word and letter spacings, the capitalizations, and the punctuation arbitrary (as I usually do with free verse). For example, sometimes line breaks occur where commas would seem to do; sometimes similar line breaks have commas, though. Or why the capital at “Hang around my Neck like a noose”?
To my mind, though, there are exceptions (and I think these exceptions would benefit from your being more conventional most of the time). The caps at “YOU’RE CRAZY ...” seem a sardonic emphasis of others’ (peers’?) almost willing blindness. “Lost ALL my weight”: here without the caps the absolute literal aspect of the notion would be lost. The spacing at “my body gets l i g h t e r” to me really reinforces the idea; and the spacing, twice, for “a s h a m e d” makes the word importantly memorable, since first it applies to our father, then to you. The use of periods and line breaks at “He. Threatened. To ...” are very effective: emphatic, but also seemingly hesitant, as if you can hardly believe it yourself.
2) After the first rhyme series, I fail to find the same purpose in your rhymes, Half-rhymes, and occasional alliteration. You might gain from being more sparing with these resources, applying them to relate two or more places in the poem, or to create a moment of emphasis (as you are using caps). Tricky to do this, I admit, and keep the spontaneous, “in the moment” feel.
3) There are many moments where I wanted more clarity. Some examples. “... your choice showing up like this”: what does “like this” mean? “... deep in debt with that witch you wed”: your dad and your step-mom together incurred financial debt?; or is your dad in debt to your step-mom?; or is the debt more emotional? “... it’s all on you”: your dad is actually solely responsible for the debt, or ...? The whole thing with the skin carving: does this relate directly to your cutting yourself (mentioned earlier)? The vertical-horizontal aspect is not descriptively clear.
4) The lines “you all lack knowledge / There are D R U G S in his system.” seem a bit clinical compared to the rest of the poem. Maybe something more like: “what do you all know? / “he’s drowning in D R U G S.”
5) You go through a passage of alliteration, beginning at “Hang around my Neck ...” there’s an opportunity for more a few lines later: for “Speaking is hard ...,” read “Talking is tough ...”
Here are a few line edits I have to call to your attention.
1) “ ... is get away from, me.” Drop the comma; maybe add ellipsis or extra space, as you often do elsewhere.
2) “For nothing new.” Read: “For nothing’s new.”?
3) “I’m bleeding / I’m week” Read: “I’m weak.”
4) “... When it‘s adult who lies.” Read: “... the adult ...”
5) “It’s an enigma to me, how he is still not ...” Prefer: “... that he is not ...”
6) “As if substance abuse wasn’t enough?” Drop question mark, maybe use ellipsis (or just space)
7) I’m truly not sure / if I would have / cried ...” Read: “... if I should have ...” (affirms that the “defiling” did happen)
8) “Either way, I just don’t understand ...” Read: “... I just didn’t ...”
9) “... choose drugs over me?” Question mark is not strictly necessary; but it maybe adds intensity at this wrenching moment.
10) “I should’ve spoke up ...” Standard English requires “spoken”; this might work better if “should’ve” is expanded to “should have.”
11) “... pay these games. / Fill in the rolls” Read: “Fill in the roles”
12) “when you marry new spouse / had a few kids ...” Read: “... marry a new spouse / have a few ...”
13) “only losses of weight” Read: “only loss of weight.” (If you don’t like the rhythm this change creates, maybe look for a one-syllable adjective to add.)”
14) “without panic a-new?” Read: “... anew?”
15) “he said how the blade steel and cold” Read: “He said if the blade steely ...”
16) “the person with live ...” Read: “... will live ...”
17) “Andin the past 11 years, ...” Read: “And in the past eleven years, ...” (consistent with “six” and “TWENTY,” above.
18) “Both at the hands ...” Read “Both times at the hands ...”
I hope you will work on this and show it around Jena. You’ll probably get some more perceptive feedback than mine.
Julian D. Woodruff
Reply
Thank you so much Julian, I did not think anyone was actually going to read it. I was glad to see that you offered both appreciation and constructive ideas. This poem is based on my own experiences and everything in it is true (unfortunately). I too agree with the loss of meaning in some of my rhyming and I think for me that comes from when I start a poem, I get in a rhythm that I have a hard time diverting from. This specific poem was actually one I wrote several years ago as a part of therapy while I was receiving treatment for anorexia. I had never planned to share it with anyone and your response actually means so much to me. I am honestly not sure about why I made certain spacing and choices in terms of capitalization, but I think for much of it, I enjoyed creating the illusion of extended pauses (as if I were to be preforming it). A few of the random capitalization are products of typing errors. I also appreciate the line edits you suggested, I'm not the best with grammar and make typing errors often. Some of my reasoning I'll explain below (or try to).
5) how he is still - emphasizing the passage of time and him not being arrested despite his actions and choices
6) I have no idea why I have a question mark.
7) would have - he is not actually dead or physically harmed
8) i still don't understand (continual)
all the other I certainly will be happy to apply!
Also, the debt is both emotional and physical. They are both trapped in a marriage with each other and their problems have cost them much financially as well. Though I do not speak to him specifically anymore. And It may take a whole other poem to explain his charming charisma which in the past has blinded my peers.
Thank you for all your help, truly.
Jena
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