:: At Peace | At War ::
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Not a breath in my body, not a beat from my heart.
But they were able to revive me;
Praise be to God! My father rejoiced.
You were given life in a future time,
Different from the majority, but unique to yourself.
Although you faced difficult obstacles,
Your mother cherished you, her first child.
I was immediately taken aback,
For my emotions were very disturbed.
My eyes crossed, my vision tarnished,
Surgery will revitalize my sight.
You were unaware of what was transpiring,
Too little to really understand.
How she was in tears to find
That your mentality was deeply challenged.
I was the youngest in my family;
The only sibling I had was my older brother.
How he teased me, played with me, and loved me;
I was a delight to his heart.
You were the oldest child;
Soon, younger siblings joined your childhood.
Whether the proclamations of familial pain
Were true or not, only your family knew.
I was the child of emotional times;
Fun, playful and optimistic.
Those who loved me showed me
It was okay to express my feelings.
You were brought up in logic;
Wise, intelligent and sagacious.
If you were to shed a tear,
You were berated for such weakness.
I was the weird geek, growing up,
Unpopular to many of my peers.
But I stood up for the oppressed;
They knew not to mess with me.
You were the glamorous beauty as you aged,
Yet you were bullied from all sides.
Driven to lose yourself, your identity,
Trying to deprive others of their happiness.
I was the seeker of truth,
But I was nowhere near perfect.
My actions would focus on the justification
Of the lies that crawled around.
You were the joker's tongue,
Quick to blame others for your own faults.
Speaking of falsehood like an overflowing chalice;
They were to drown in poison-laced deception.
I was quite the motherly guardian,
And looking back, I was overprotective.
My quest for equality was never-ending;
God help me, I prayed one night.
You were quite the tricky saboteur,
And sadly, that hasn't changed at all.
Befriending those who always believed
That you were never wrong.
I was naive, I was foolish;
To put my trust in you?
How I should have never given you
More chances than you honestly deserved.
You were selfish, you were jealous;
Ignorance was your sole embrace.
Why did you drown yourself
In ever-growing dark lies?
I tried to help you, to guide you to the light.
My heart was wounded with scars.
You claimed to have never been my friend
After all the things we have gone through.
You were torn apart from the inside-out;
The truth was too much to bear.
Their trust in you, lost forever
All because you never listened.
While I venture closer to my redemption,
You are winding down to your destruction.
My heart grows stronger with time;
Your heart freezes with black ice.
I am at peace with myself;
You are at war with yourself.
Author: Me!
Genre: Emotional, Reflective
Music Inspiration: [link] "This is War" by Thirty Seconds to Mars
I was listening to my favorite TSTM song (linked above) and then I started writing. It's been a while since I've submitted anything here on DeviantArt, so please excuse the rust. I cannot confirm or deny the possibility of this piece reflecting on real life or simply being fictitious. Maybe you, the reader, can relate to this? Please let me know what you think.
This poem and the writing (c) Me.
Welcome. I will be critiquing this piece on behalf of 
.
Firstly I apologise for the lateness of this critique. We have had an immense backlog.
ST = Stanza
L = Line
My first thought when reading the title was that this was going to be a war poem. After reading through it a few times I have come to the conclusion that in its own way it is. The war within oneself and the 'war' one faces everyday in relationships.
ST 1:
L1 - I am not sure if you mean that L2 made the circumstances risky or whether the circumstances were risky due to outside factors. Perhaps some clarity here.
L3 - Try not to start a sentence with 'but'. In this case it can be left off and the sentence will mean the same only be clearer.
L4 - I like the italics, as it denotes speaking in this case, but you use them at the end of each ST. Perhaps speech marks here would differentiate. Alternatively if you did not mean this to be seen as speech I would suggest changing it somehow.
ST 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and L2, 4 in ST 19 - Here there is a different person being spoken about. This needs to be different to the other ST. I would have suggested italics but you use them well at the ends of the ST's to illustrate points. Perhaps if you can indent them somehow, or make the end of the ST's bold and italics. Just a suggestion.
ST 2:
L1 - 'future time' makes me think of something 'sci-fi'. Later on in the piece you mention that the two people meet each other, thus the word 'future' seems out of place.
L2 - Here you say the same thing twice. If you are different from the majority then it stands to reason that you are unique to yourself.
ST 3:
L2 - I don't know if 'disturbed' is the correct word here. It makes me think of someone who has a mental illness. If this is what you were intending then I think this is well done.
L4 - 'will' should be 'would' keeping with the tense of the piece and ST
ST 4:
Here you allude to the second person being 'mentally challenged'. This is what prompted my comment of 'disturbed' in the previous ST.
ST 5:
L2 - here you have repeated yourself by using the word 'older' when you previously said that the speaker was 'youngest'.
ST 6:
L2 - again you have repeated yourself with 'younger' in this line and 'oldest' in L1.
ST 7:
/
ST 8:
L2 - Nice vocabulary with 'sagacious'
ST 9:
L2 - 'to' should be 'with'
ST 10:
/
ST 11:
/
ST 12:
L4 - Nice compound word with 'poison-laced'
ST 13:
L4 - Again here the italics are words spoken. Again I would suggest speech marks.
ST 14:
/
ST 15:
L1 - I would remove the semi-colon and have this line run on into the next.
L2 - Why the question mark?
ST 16:
L2 - 'Ignorance' doesn't seem to fit in here. Perhaps a different word.
ST 17:
L4 - 'have' should be 'had' to fit in with the tense
ST 18:
/
ST 19:
As previous mentioned you need to divide this between the 'I' and 'you' somehow.
L1 - I would remove 'while'
ST 20:
Here you differentiate with the use of bold text. Perhaps consider this differentiation without the whole piece.
Overall:
I liked the theme within this and the two people being spoken about.
Watch out for your tenses as these gave you a problem on at least two occasions.
J