Suffering, part one

I feel trapped,

I feel betrayed,

And most of all, I feel broken.

I asked for help,

and no one heard me,

no one heard my crying,

no one comforted me.

My own mother has turned cold,

and no friends I have at school,

all I am,

all I see,

is a failure.

They tell me 'your eyes are beautiful',

but they do not know,

they are beautiful because I am hurting,

because I have no love left to give,

and all that I give is my eyes,

I don't give anything away,

not my words,

not my thoughts,

not my love,

not my expressions- only my eyes.

I could never let them know.

I would never let them in.

Author's Note

Please be patient in wait for my next poem. It takes time to motivate my mind.

Reviews

[Beren]

I loved this poem! Honest and emotional. I think you did a great job✨️🌸
"they are beautiful because I am hurting" ahh pretty when you cry, but I hope you smile always

[Lilibeth A.K(2nd profile)]

Thank you for the positive feedback. I post as some kind of venting tool, or an escape, and people have told me I am good at writing so I do it often. Thank you for the support. I will try to keep smiling even in the hardest of times. I hope you have a lovely day!

[JayG]

• I feel trapped, I feel betrayed, And most of all, I feel broken.

So, for no reason the reader is aware of, someone unknown, of an unspecified gender, age, and background, has decided to inform people they know nothing about of their unhappiness?

But...how many people who come here are seeking a dismal damsel poem? What can the reader say in response but, "Uhh...okay."? Do you come here hoping to find out what's bothering others?

Two things are an absolute requirement when writing. The first is context. Without that readers have only words in a row, meaning unknown.

The second, for the reader, is a reason to care. In example:

Assume that someone comes to where you are and says, "So, did you hear that someone was hit by a car at the corner?" You might ask who it was, or about their condition...but out of curiosity.

Change that, though, to: "So, did you hear that your mother was hit by a car at the corner?" Your reaction would be dramatically different because you'd have an emotional connection to the event.

And that's my point. We must connect with the reader on an emotional level, not talk AT them. You need to make your words both meaningful to the reader AND important to them. So instead of the nonfiction fact-based and author-centric approach you use now, dig into the emotion-based and character-centric skills of the poet.

Poetry isn't us telling people how we feel. No one cares unless you give them reason to care. using nonfiction, the only kind of writing you learned in school, we tell the reader that we cried at a funeral. But using the skills of the poet, we give the READER reason to weep.

The thing that so many people miss is that they've been refining the skills of poetry for multiple centuries, And while doing that they've identified the traps and gotchas. So, dig into the skills of the poet and you avoid them, too. If you don't...

Try a read of Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook. If nothing else, it will take your mind from your problems.

https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

[Lilibeth A.K(2nd profile)]

Thank you for your recommendations. I have been writing poetry for a year now and aspire to be a poet when I am older. Currently, I write poetry to get my emotions out, as I have been struggling with my mental health and family- as an escape. I understand that people do not come on this site to have other peoples' "you problems" and I accept that. I will try to use the tools you have given me and I will still continue to use poetry as an escape, but I will post those less often. Thank you for taking the time to read and review my poetry. I found it very helpful. (I apologise if I am repeating the same things over and over, I tend to do that).

[JayG]

It's not that you're doing anything "wrong." It's that because no one ever tells us that all we learn in school is nonfiction writing, to make us useful to future employers, we pretty much all make the "beginner's mistakes." And the key is to give yourself permission to make them, and learn from them.

So you have a LOT of company. And, the approach of the nonfiction methodology is fact-based and author-centric, which is what you're using, and why the result is what it is. Adding tools to your kit will do two things. First is give you ways to better express your feelings in a way that the reader will better relate to.

The second is to, possibly, distract you a bit from the issues currently driving your writing.

Here's another resource that might prove useful: Jump over to Amazon and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled. What he says about the flow of words in language is positively brilliant.

[Lilibeth A.K(2nd profile)]

Thank you for clarifying.