To Those Who Think They Love Me

A small little poem that I worked on in my free time. It's far from my best work, but I'd also like to think that it is far from my worst.

Those who think they love me are in for quite a surprise.
All too often I have kept secrets from them,
As it's rare a thought can be seen by the naked eye.

They see what I present only, not what I think.
They only hear my spoken speech
They never read the written script.

Who I am and who I make myself to be,
They do not get along at all.
They fight a war, a battle scary to see.

My gender-identity is seen to be fake.
My sexuality is rarely heard of.
My personality is highhandedly putting my life at stake.

My own me is a lie in the eye of others,
The real me must hide from the eye of others.
My own me is exactly what others despise.

And that is why you can only think that you love me.
Because I myself am hidden from your eye.
I am never to be heard, never to be seen.

You love what you know, what you've believed.
I am not known nor believed, therefore not loved.
The love others have for me is simply a thought that deceives.

Author's Note

Please help me improve this in any way I can. This is my first piece of writing on this site, so it's a little shaky. Poetry has never been my strong suit, but emotions have, so I've turned to poetry as a way to vent them. However, my word-play and my rhyming skills are off, and so is my ability to make words flow. My lines are usually short and choppy, so please help in any way you can. Positive feedback is welcome, but so is negative feedback! Thank you very much, I appreciate every reader and reviewer alike.

Reviews

[vido.]

I'm sorry but don't listen to commentator below. He's an unserious troll. Emotion is the key to great pieces. This is a beautifully honest sober poem. Adore the lines "They only hear my spoken speech/ They never read the written script." Very relatable and well penned. x

[Cladine]

It's true . We rarely show our real self and if we do,that is the time we get to know who truly love us. I am no professional to correct you or provide you great advice but I believe that writing is freedom and you made your own style.Another poem I enjoyed :)keep it up.

[sinNsincerity]

You don't need to improve anything here. It's simply amazing and I feel as if I wrote it.
"My own me is exactly what others despise," slayed me! And was true for a long while.
I can't believe this guy below though. How dare her speak about your pen name when he calls himself Swaglord420 and have the audacity to suggest how you should write.
Poetry isn't always beautiful and doesn't have to have morals.
I despise those who say otherwise and try to place it and us in a box.
Poetry has no boundaries... sort of like Jazz.

[TheLonelyWriter]

Thank you so much :)

[Andrew Rayne]

I think this piece is a good response to what many people think about when they think about themselves. So before we get into the critique, I want to point out what I thought was your strongest attributes.

You have some pretty diversifying lines here that really stand out. Specifically your second and third stanza. They are a testament to the theme, and are in my opinion the two most brilliantly executed stanzas in the entire piece. I love that feeling you get when you read it, that "wow" factor that you get when you hear a line you just want to hear again. In many first poems, you don't get that, and it does give me insight to a talent that just needs to be steered in the right direction in order to capture all of its glory.

Now for the critique, which I will say will be longer than the praises, but I hope you take the criticism and work with it. They are my opinions, and though I am no expert writer, I hope you will find some good results through it. Without my mentor, I don't think I would have become as good as a writer as I am today, and through the harsh critiques she still gives me, it proves to make me more successful in my work. So, let's get right down to it.

The rhythm is broken up almost to much. You begin with this stanza that when you first read it, you cant help but give it the lyrical tone because of the beats. That tone sticks through the entire poem as we try to capture that same beat and can't find it. It makes for a harder read than what is intended, which is nothing bad. All you need to do is find a style that works for you and to do that you need to try a whole bunch of different styles of poetry in order to find your niches. Haiku's may not be your strong suit, but free verse might. Experiment and see what you can come up with.

The diction of this work is moderate at best. That is not to say your vocabulary is limited or small mind you, not at all. It is just the use of the same phrase or word is used almost exhaustively.
They They They, My My My, My own me, Love Love Love. It is not that using these words more than once is the problem. It is how you layered them into your work that makes it seem worse than it actually is. Try and reword some of your lines, sometimes shorter is better and you get more out of it because you focus solely on the image and feeling you are trying to imply.

Example, I would have written the second stanza something such as:
"They see what I present,
not what I think.
Only hear my spoken speech
and never read the written script."

It is powerful as it is, but it lacks the power that it can have because it takes so long to get through it. Think of your power lines, the ones you really want to be remembered, as butterflies. They are not these huge birds with glorified wings and screeching sounds. They are silent, small, and are vibrant in the littlest of ways. They are fragile, and if you put to much weight on them, they can break apart.

Another little thing, which really is just a personal critique is the rhyming scheme. Since the way you have it structured is so bold, your rhyming scheme should stay consistent and it isn't. Take firing a gun at a target, you're not all over the place, but you have little groups here and there and none of them quiet hit the bulls-eye. If the structure was a little different, (Next critique), then it would work. However, since it is written this way, I don't get as much power and emotion from your verses because I'm more invested than I should be trying to get the flow down.

My last and final critique on this piece, is its structure. To have the bold three lined stanzas you have to have flow. Especially if you are going to write with a rhyming scheme like the one you have. Since it is lacking in that instance, I think if you combine some of your stanzas to make them longer; and give some indents to give the poem a more ascetically appealing look. I think it would bring this whole piece to life and would really flesh out what I think you want to come out of this.

All in all, I think that you have a wonderful potential as a writer. You just need a guiding hand to steer you in the direction that will compliment your talents the most. This is a good piece, and I would love for you to take into consideration what I have said and rework it to see what you can come up with.

[TheLonelyWriter]

Thank you! I am taking everything you said into consideration, and although I will never change my work that has been published, I will use it to improve my next piece. Poetry isn't my thing, so everything that you've said will help a lot, I am sure of it. Thank you so much, you were kind and gentle while getting a strong point across!

[Andrew Rayne]

Of course, and it is good to leave evidence of your past so you can see how far you have come when you look back on it. :) Keep it up as is, and as you grow and succeed as a poet and writer, you can look back like I do on my earlier work and be pleased with how far you have come. :)

[Thaddius]

I love how well you know your strengths and shortcomings. I do believe that you are an emotionally complex being - the gender identity subject that you broach here would, in my view, only add to the dynamic richness of your experience of the human condition. That's something people would envy, if they could understand..

I won't give you specific notes. Try to make it sound like you are talking. Talk with your fingers. Try to incorporate images, ones that don't even seem to make sense. Reach into the unknown, and run with it. Riff, play with sounds, meaning can go to hell. Don't try to spell out anything. Play with structure, and voice, and try to see if you can tell the whole story without actually telling any of it. Become a connoisseur of your emotional states (which you already are), and let focus and haze play off the stanzas and spaces to create work that does justice to your pain. And that's all. Good luck (I'm no authority, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what works).