Hanging Fire

-Hanging Fire-

I think the main idea of this poem is common complex and confrontation among the teens. The main character of the poem is a fourteen-year-old boy full of anguishes and unknown restless emotion. 

The form of this poem is in simple structure in simple present tense description. Moreover, each major paragraph starts with “I”, obviously the speaker used the first person speaking tone to express his problem and thoughts. There aren’t any metaphors used but clear, and strong expression. The author clearly expressed his restless and confusion on what he was and what he would be. 

From the first paragraph "I'm fourteen and my skin has betrayed me", it reveals the speaker's interior world was still a little boy even though his look and skin was transforming into an teenager and he's doing those stuff like a modern teenager does, like going to a school party. In addition, the speaker thought he might die young, and on one would care even his own mother. "Momma's in the bedroom with the door closed" is repeating at the last sentence of each paragraph. Even the speaker was angry with all those pain-in-the neck stuff have to be done, but the door of his mother's bedroom just like the door between he and his mom is always shut off. 

All in all, it's a poem describing a teenager with a young man's look but still a boy living inside him, and his helpless and loneliness to the painful growth. Moreover, he was longing for his mom would give him a hand whenever he needed. Though the price for growing is painful and long, the price is the promising future and fruits during the youth. However, the speaker only tasted the pain and the helpfulness he's suffering from his grow-up, what he thought of is how short his life would be before growing up. I think that all the teenagers would like to get attention and be loved, if they don't get it, the anguish would be just like a "hanging fire" lingering in their mind all the time.