Please I ask you
I beg of you
Stop the yelling
stop this pain
stop everything
making living in vain
all the screaming
all the fights
degrading words
blindly spoken every night
slamming doors
and breaking glass
everything happens so fast
with the fuck yous
and shut up bitches
leaves no more room
for hugs or kisses
in my so called family
secret lives
and hidden abuse
no one knows
what we do
drugs and hateful truths
makes life worse
and living it
such a curse
then tears of love
turn to tears of hate
and lead to blood
spilled everyday
in my so called family
malice in our eyes
malice in our hearts
no love for each other
ripping us apart
out the door
someone else walks away
to get as far as possible
from this pain
and all these dark thoughts
driving them insane
this is what I see
what others perceive
this is my
So Called Family
Author notes
Written February 18th, 2006
A contest entry
- Family Dispute by MasochisticallyJess.
300 points, ended March 25, 2008, 16 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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Love it. Literally. Tears as proof
I hate to say this, and dont you tell, but this has made me cry. My step mom and my da used to fight everday. She would blame everthing on me and i had to sit there and take it. Here im ok, because mesteo dad knows better than to hit me. -
Not too terrible of a write. It's quite emotional, an expression of true feelings, honest desires... and in that sense, it's very well done.
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Secrets no one can ever know or tell because people in families won't shut up to listen. insults and fights everywhere.
Wierd, I think, that I can relate to most of your poems, is that a bad thing? -
LOVE IT!
I really like your poems as I can relate to most of them. This poem reminds me of my own life growing up in what appeared to be a perfect family behind closed doors but for me it was hell. -
Yea I focuessed on only the bad here, because I think this poem shows potential but you miss the mark in a lot of key places.
I think this needs a lot more planning then you put in here. As I explained to someone else, doing a "brain dump" at the spur of the moment is a really good way to get your raw emotions onto paper, but it doesn't do much for the reader after you've finished. I see a couple of really good ideas get started throughout this poem, but none of them really get developed, with you instead opting for the same generic, "my family = bad" stuff. Ok, I get that after the first three stanzas, should I stop now? Maybe that's kinda harsh, but I hate to see good ideas not get developed here. I think that good poetry is poetry that you can't just take at face value, that you need to look deeper to get meaning. Of course, if you were just looking for an outlet, what you have here is fine.
Some ideas I see that don't get developed:
1) "blindly spoken every night" - why use the word "blindly"? I think it would be very interesting to introduce blindness as a central theme here. Perhaps you can try something like this - write a poem about a blind man, where the blind man actually represents how your entire family (include yourself for extra emphasis, or not if you don't want to) can't see the harm they're causing each other.
2) "then tears of love/ turn to tears of hate" - I think this is very interesting. Perhaps you can explore something where these tears go back and forth, from love to hate and then back to love again. This I think would help you paint a more accurate picture of what these broken families are really like.
However, it does seem to me that none of these issues are things you really thought out, a further indication that the appropriate amount of planning was not put into this piece of poetry (but again, I cannot overemphasize that if you were looking for raw emotion, you definately got it). In a good piece of poetry, every word should be carefully thought out. Just writing words that flow well limits your ability to explore deeper concepts.
Some side notes: dictionary.com defines "vain" as follows:
1)Not yielding the desired outcome; fruitless
2)Lacking substance or worth
3)Excessively proud of one's appearance or accomplishments
and "in vain":
1)To no avail; without success
2)In an irreverent or disrespectful manner
none of wich fit where you use it. I think this is just another example of you throwing words down that sound nice, but don't go much further beyond that.
You start the poem with "Please I ask you/ I beg of you" and then move on to asking your family to stop their abuse. Ok, this is good. Then you describe this abuse when you write, "all the screaming...". Ok, still good. Then, by the end of the poem, you're talking about tears of love and hate, and people leaving. This seems to have nothing at all to do with your request as outlines in the first two stanzas. I don't really know how to explain it here in writing, you really need to read the entire poem again, but do so in the lens of the first two stanzas. You seems to break away from your request on your family and focus instead on "malace" or "getting as far as possible". This contrasts with the opening stanzas of the poem which imply that the poem is going to be centered around you pleading with your family to stop their abuse.
You say "secret lives/ and hidden abuse" and then you later say "what others perceive". So, which is it? Again, I think this is an issue of focus. Know what you want to do beforehand - and I'm not talking about "know that you wanna write a poem about your family" I mean more specific than that. Know exactly what direction you want to go; what your symbols are, what your themes are going to be. -
thanks I apprecuate the comments and I will fix bitches
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So good! So sad, but so good. You did a very good job on the rhyming. I don't think you need an apostrophe after bitches though
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amazing
This is very sad. I can relate to it, that's even sadder.
You did a masterful job of describing the dysfunction and bullsh*t that goes on in some families (like mine) and I just totally commend you. I'm gonna applaud this one....
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oh my i know this, this pain that you speak of... i see it everyday, you did a wonderful job of discribing this pain... this hurt that i know all to well. thank you for sharing this with ap and keep up the good work. -pixie
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Oh, that is sad. I can really feel the pain in this poem. Dear, you forgot the a in family on the title.
Anyway, great job on this, full of pain, sadness, somewhow reminds me of when my mom and brother fight.
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1 - 10 of 10
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