I am deeply disturbed by my son's poetry. What should I do?

Question

As of recently, my 16 year old son shows little interest in talking to me, and he often doesn't want to attend church. He spends more time with his friends than he used to. I do not approve of his friends or the music he listens to, and he doesn't seen to care what I think, and that worries me deeply.

Today when I was going through his room while he was at a church youth group meeting, I unfortunately discovered a notebook full of his writings. And when I was going through his account on the computer, I discovered even more disturbing poetry.

I am very concerned by this. Why would he ever think, much less write such sinful and disturbing things, instead of glorifying God in his writings?

I am almost scared to talk to him about these things now. How should I appraoch this? Should I seek out professional help for him?

Below are some of his writings that are free of horrible profanities. Judging by these, what do you think could be wrong to be making him behave in such a way?

1:

Sweet baby brother,

A napalm sunrise in coming,

It'll burn the sun black;

Bleed the moon dry,

You'll have to leave your world behind,

You don't need all the pretty things that pull you down,

The weight of the world is merely a pawn,

Let them all drown in your newfound salvation,

If you take my hand with all the strength in your feeble limbs,

I'll promise you a safe place to call your own,

You said you want this as much as I do,

So take it and don't look back,

Children dancing among the flames,

Hand in hand as our flesh melts away,

Sing from inside when you've got nothing left,

I won't dare let you out of my sight,

Of all the nights we've spoken in dreams,

You've earned my unconditional trust,

Meet me by the shore where the silver sea shines,

Follow me to our underground city.

Bid farewell the the person the world made you,

When we are nothing we'll become pure,

2:

You speak softly in a child’s voice,

Tiny sweaty fingers trembling between my own,

The warmth of your skin repulses me,

Intimacy so genuine and soft is my greatest fear,

Please don’t stay the night,

I can’t bear to hear you breathing as you lie on my floor,

My constant glass eyes are giving me away,

I stand made of stone, only because I’m a bigger coward than you,

How could I say I needed you?

I love all that I hate, and I hate all that I love,

If I tell you that I love you,

Rest assured that tomorrow you will be a guilty memory,

I can’t break my promises anymore,

My lips are sewn shut with the hair of the last angel I shot out of the sky,

I place my hand on your throat,

The blood rushing below your pale young skin melts me,

Your innocent eyes, so wide and fixated on mine,

Unflinching and calm, I know you’ve got me figured out,

3:

Sitting on the cold tile floor, trapped in a continuous headrush,

Lulled in and out of consciousness by the coffeemaker’s drip, drip, drip…

Bug eyed and disassociated,

Just the dead person in the corner…

I drilled a hole in my skull,

I’m a child again, Mother.

The day drags on like an eternity.

Now you’re nothing but a blur,

Marring my unfocussed vision.

Fade away, fade away, disappear…

How are you gullible enough to believe in me?

I never existed at all.

4:

Ragdoll, with your limbs blowing in the breeze,

All brown and yellowed,

You’re growing old,

I’m growing impatient,

Descend to me,

Graceful and autumn scented,

Let me tear you apart,

Another failed attempt to dissect you,

I’m left with dirty hands and tattered threads,

In your stained glass skull,

You’re trapped inside a music box,

A broken record dream,

Dance.

Dance until your legs are no more,

You’ll become the dust that dances on sunbeams,

As they crawl through my windows at dawn,

5:

Suddenly I notice the strange familiarity of the salty sea breeze,

My house is on the ocean,

It wretches and creaks with every gentle wave,

Balance beam hallways tremble beneath my hands and knees,

Attempting to purge me from the bowels of my own dream,

Through mommy and daddy’s room, I move like a ghost,

I try so hard not to be seen,

Their closed eyes still bore into me,

But are they sleeping or deceased?

My room is just a number somewhere in these infinite hallways,

I’m lost in my own world of monotony,

Even when my teeth fall out, still, I am unconcerned,

I have to meet her by the shore,

I run past the bottomless swimming pool,

Its air so thick and chlorinated,

Water filled with cliché laughing faces,

Elevator, take me to the river,

Somewhere amongst the sand and rocks,

By the cold brown water she is looking for me,

6:

Yes, I remember you,

In the rubble of my abondoned city,

A piecemeal angel in the fog,

I saw you last night in a sedated dream,

I held onto your cold plastic flesh,

Begging you not to leave,

Sing, please, with shattered glass vocal cords,

So I know I won't sleep ever again,

Rip your chest open and show me your clockwork entrails,

Dusty, rusted and void of a heart,

Crucify yourself above the door of our shrine,

Burn the image of your face inside my eyelids,

So I won't dare forget you ever again,

Answer 1

This is very disturbing to me. if it were my son, I would definitely have him evaluated.

Answer 2

Well I can tell that you just like a lot of others take your christianity to far and push it on others around you. You can believe in god and not be a psycho about it. Your son is probably rebelling against that and maybe he doesnt have the same beliefs as you and you should except him for the person he is like a good christian woman should. He is going to think and act the way he wants cause he is old enough to do that now and there is no way of changing him. You just have to except him.

Answer 3

I would confront him, to be honest...sometimes, children want to be found out, because they want to talk about it. IT sounds like he is having sexual encounters with someone...I wouldn't accuse him of anything, but I would sit him down, and tell him you are very concerned,and to start explaining. to you.. ask it in a way, that doesn't make him not want to speak to you...but it sounds like satan is got a hold of him...so use wisdom, and love, to fight the enemy.  I CAN'T BELIEVE, THAT SO MANY OF YOU, THINK THAT AT 16, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO 'INFILTRATE' HIS PRIVACY...THESE POEMS CLEARLY TELL A TROUBLED STORY. HIS MOM DOES NOT HAVE TO ATTACK HIM BUT LOVE HIM AND SHOW CONCERN HE MAY BE CRYING OUT. EVER THINK OF THAT?

Answer 4

If you think you have problems with your son now try telling him that you went snooping through his personal writings.  He chose not to share them with you for a reason.  Poetry is often written when we are in some intense emotional state and not our ordinary selves.  Your son's personality shows through his writings and I find nothing particularly alarming about what he wrote and I have been a Christian for 35 years.  You should focus on more basic parenting and not dramatize this event.  It is not a sign that he needs professional help, which he would resnt you for the rest of his life.  Not everyone is into listening to rock of ages, and the fact that yuo don't like his friends shows that you are so judgmental that you can't get along with people.  It's really you that has a problem.  You think yuo are so much better than others because of your ideals.  Well Ideals don't make the person.  You are a lot worse than you know right now, but haven't yet reached a point where you realize it.  That doesn't come till much later in your Christian walk.  Show your son and his friends some of the grace that yuo belive in and maybe he will show you his writings himself because he will know that he won't be judged.

Answer 5

writing poetry is obviously a way for him to let out his emotions and feelings - - so be thankful that he doesn't do it through other way (ie self harm, verbal abuse etc..)

he has talent btw...

but yeaah you can ask him about it but not so long ago my mum found my book of writings and when she came to me about it i got so angry that she'd read them.. she got counselling for me that did absolutely nothing - was a waste of money and time..

she didnt understand it was just a way for me to express my feelings..

so i dont know.. from your sons perpective - leave him be

from a mothers - i dont know how you think...

Answer 6

Honestly, I wouldn't be worried.

At his age I also used poetry and short story writing as a way to let out and handle emotions that I didn't quite know how to express - anger, sadness, frustration with school and the cliques in it, and of course, puppy love.

Your son (who has an incredible command of the English language for his age, his imagery is so realistic that it touched all five of my senses) seems to be expressing a lot of the same things I did...  of course these are my interpretations, but...

The first poem, while at a casual glance may seem "scary" or "disturbing" with its talk of napalm sunrises and melting flesh, is neither.  The overall idea of the poem seems to be a rejection of earthly, material things

"You'll have to leave your world behind,

You don't need all the pretty things that pull you down,

The weight of the world is merely a pawn,

Let them all drown in your newfound salvation"

and from the beginning address to "sweet baby brother", and the references to other people in "children dancing" and the refusal to "let you out of my sight" it sounds like the poem is his way of saying (to himself, from a "first person omnipotent" point of view; or an explanation to another from his point of view) that although other people may be blinded by all the shallow, physical things around them, your son is not and has hope that others won't be too.  It's a common sentiment for that age, when kids are dealing with the shallow clique-ish-ness of high school.  He's saying "look at me for who I am on the inside, not the outside, and I will show you the same respect and look at you the same way.  Then we, together, will overcome the people too blind and trapped to do so."  Overall the poem is full of hope, and although some of the imagery may seem violent, I'm sure some of the feelings that inspired him to write the poem were strong feelings, so he used strong imagery to express them.

And for another type of imagery, I'm sure the third poem would look scary at a casual glance, why it uses the word "dead", talks about drilling a hole in his head (and has "mother" right after that), and then says "i never existed at all".  But, again, your son uses such vivid imagery and (extreme seeming - to you? - but not to him, because these emotions are strong and even stronger for a teenager, remember?), that I'd bet anything the poem means this:

Frustration.  

"Sitting on the cold tile floor, trapped in a continuous headrush,

Lulled in and out of consciousness by the coffeemaker’s drip, drip, drip…

Bug eyed and disassociated,

Just the dead person in the corner…"

"The day drags on like an eternity.

Now you’re nothing but a blur,

Marring my unfocussed vision."

The sterile, inanimate imagery there and there, combined with:

"I drilled a hole in my skull,

I’m a child again, Mother."

Which is most likely a satirical claim (to childhood, obviously the drilling is again an analogy, kind of like a figurative lobotomy), followed by a prediction of something LESS dire than a cursory glance would reveal.

"Fade away, fade away, disappear…

How are you gullible enough to believe in me?

I never existed at all."

What he's saying in this poem seems to be partly the opposite of what the words say (the satire), and partly a plea not to let the things he's saying happen (the prediction).  He feels as though you are treating him like a child (the lobotomy comparison with the drill, followed by "I'm a child again, Mother").  As for the prediction, it could be either his fading hope, or the fading or his relationship with you, or both.  But it is definitely not suicidal.  Otherwise it would have been something more along the lines of "I should have never existed", a wish, not an analogy that he never existed in your eyes (obviously you know he exists, I'm speaking of a part of him, his "grown-up self", which he wants you to acknowledge)  With what you said about his lack of interest in church or talking to you, and your searching his room (which I'm sure he knows about), and you being "deeply worried" he won't listen to you; obviously you are keeping a very close eye on him and trying to be a very, very involved parent, but I must ask...

Do you realize that he feels like you are smothering him?  That third poem is a plea for you to notice him, but not just to look at him and see him as your son, but to see him as a person.  He is at an age where he has his own thoughts and feelings, and you have noticed yourself that he "doesn't seem to care what you think", but really, no matter how mad he may act with you in a moment, or how contrary he may be in some actions, he still loves you as the woman who gave him life and raised him.  He just needs you to listen to him, to give his ideas a chance, and maybe to give him a little bit of freedom and trust.

Up to a certain age you get the chance with your child to give them everything you know, to guide their actions, to filter the information they receive, and to do everything in your power to shape them into a good adult.  But your son is at the point where no matter what you do you do not have all that power over him anymore.  No matter what you do now, he has other influences : his own thoughts and feelings.  If you have any questions or want to discuss any more of the writings in detail, please e-mail me at [e-mail] .  Good luck!

Answer 7

STOP RAMMING RELIGION DOWN HIS THROAT.  He is 16, an individual with his own personal interests and beliefs.  His poetry is a way to express his emotions, you should be proud of having a son in touch with his sensitive side.  Why don't you like his friends - let me guess because they dress in black and listen to "Slipknot"!  He's a teenager let him be, I'm sure he will grow up to be a fine young man.

I think in you forcing Christianity on him you've pushed him over to the Goth side.  Shame on you.

Answer 8

Take this from a person his age, I ent through that  same phase. His poetry is similar to what mine was and I'm sure the music that you don't approve of is something along the lines of my chemical romance? I got past this phase when i realised on my own it was lame. BUT I have friends who went through the stge with me and haven't yet gotten past it BECAUSE their parents confronted them about it and used it as a sorce of defiance. Just let it pass and it will soon go away. Hope I heped! ^-^

Answer 9

why are you going through his stuff? have you not heard of PRIVACY!  

Answer 10

16 is a natural time of change, and the development of one's identity as an individual, distinct from the family unit, or internalized parental prohibitions and demands are all natural markers of this transitional phase.

Your son is just like so many other millions of young people who have all gone through a "this is who I am now" stage, and who have all grown up to be normal, fully functioning adults.

I would say the best you can do is lean on prayer; look for peace and aim to try not to be disapproving of your son's exploration, as he is searching for identity, (given his poetry and I can imagine his friends, I think, to some degree); the more you can tune in to where he is, the more he will recognize that you're not a figure that he should rebel against. You could also try and initiate even small periods of open dialogue (maybe at meal times, if that is still possible), where your aim is to hear him and let him know that, although you have limits, he is safe to express whatever he feels he needs to- to you.

I can imagine that your son's poetry would have struck you, even stung you. But walk with him as much as you can and communicate interest in him, even though he may not be expressing himself according to the ways in which he was raised.

All the best, and I will add you and your son to my prayer list, if that is okay.