The Path
poetry, fiction, horror
Published on:
Feb. 25, 2008, 12:09amWord Count:
735Last Edited:
Mar. 8, 2008, 12:52amWork Description
I wouldn't define myself as a poet, by any means. This is a poem I wrote for a high school creative writing class, the assignment was to create something influenced from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Dante's Inferno. It's kinda long, though.
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The Path
Come with me and I shall reveal
All the truths and thoughts and realities one should feel
Half asleep in a nightmare between worlds I shall guide you through
the maze
Past the corners where a soul stays
When it reaches the point of no return
The empty, forlorn houses no longer a concern
Monuments of modern men
So take my hand and we shall begin
Our walk down the road not taken
Few have seen it
Fewer believe it.
Knowledge has taken second place
For the sake of a smile upon a face.
Shadows flow thick like oil
Oozing down the walls like oil,
Stretching over everything in sight
Daring synthetic light to recoil.
Its black hand clenches all aspects of life
Contaminating hope
Tightens around the innocent neck like a rope.
There will be time, then
To relive past mistakes
To drench yourself in shadows of oil
And watch your great demise uncoil.
Yes, there is always time
To prepare your lies and sharpen your knives
To attach the mask of ignorance
For what's more important than fitting in
To your predetermined place?
Knowledge has taken second place
For the sake of a smile upon a face.
I shall fly past all the warning signs
And be mocked my own inexperience
Ashamed of the only genuine smile
To be touched by youthful excitement for a while.
(Remember the phrase: "We are so much the same.")
See the routines laid out to please another
Wasted hours to catch attention and hold it there.
(Remember the phrase: "How's my make up how's my hair?")
What do they say Behind my back?
They don't know me
Or perhaps they know me better than myself.
For I have seen their faces blurred into one-
A multitude of treacheries molded into one treacherous move.
I had known better and stayed tight to my well known groove
But from the blur of faces one should appear
To be different, to stand out, to be inescapably clear.
I was caught in his snare.
I had known them for what they were
Had myself been a victim of their scrutinizing gaze
Yielded angrily to their masses
Unwillfully to their opinions I had and would refer.
They gain their way by falsely kissing asses.
I knew the consequences but still fell victim to their ways
I was caught in his snare.
And the moments took me obliviously-
Nothing else mattered so long as he was with me,
The color green associating itself with his face,
Became a permanent tennant in my head.
Did not try to stop it but encouraged it instead
Loved it, consumed it and left it for dead.
And deep down inside I knew this
Held myself higher than all the rest
Understood what others did not...
Anything worthwhile shatters like glass
What the hell ever happened to class?
And then before me the face blurred.
The beautiful, welcoming smile
Turned into
A demonic snarl in the dark, shadowy oil
Shook my world apart
Ripped out my beating heart
Broke before me from his angelic mold
While I sat trembling, starting up
My strength had vanished and all I saw was the truth- I gave it all
up
For the ignorance of youth
And now I walk past all the people I thought I knew
Their eyes blankly staring, not seeing you
When you call out to them they vacantly look at you
There is no recognition
You recieve
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Discussion
I totally didn't intend for this poem to look like a giant block of text! I guess something happened between me uploading it and publishing it. Let that be a lesson to me to check over my work after I publish it! But thanks for pointing that out to me, I really appreciate it.
Hi, J. D. Brown! Despite the fact that you think that poetry is not at all your forte, I still loved your piece, due to its great sense of creativity. Also, what you have written during your creative writin class seems to be deep, dark, and brooding. This poem is just how I like it. In my honest opiniion, cheery, ligt and colorful poems are okay and acceptable to my standards, but I prefer deep, dark, sinful, and brooding types of works. They just sound a bit interesting. This is just how I like to write my flash fiction. Your work to my standards is very good in fact, not because of its darkness protruding from the depths of the poem itself, it is because of how creative you are. I believe that you can do dark poems this good, so in your free time, I wish you good luck on making more poems like this. Other than that, I would like to say this to you: Have a great career at writing and also take care!



I'm sure you're trying for something stylistic by not having paragraphs or any breaks in between sentences, but it makes this piece very difficult to read. If you decide to leave the words this way, I would at least do double-space format so that the reader can concentrate on the line better.
Research suggests that the easiest amount of words per line for a person to read is around 12. Because that is not really possible on this site without a lot of formatting of your own, you have to make sure that you give the reader easier ways to stay with the words, such as spacing.
It doesn't help that a lot of your piece is really abstract in itself. The imagery is lost within the big block of text the reader has to scrounge through. I can also bet that a lot of people have skipped over this piece due to the lack of paragraphs.
If you want people to read it, make it readable!