Can you help me improve this piece, comments and critique also welcome, thanks?

L5, V2 - comma after 'handsome'.

L4, 5 & 6, V3 -

When young you set the world alight,

you climbed up to the highest height,

yet burned a candle day and night

etc., etc.

This poem shows how different two people from the same parents can be. That is what I love the most about it. It has a perfect flow and word choices to me. I'm sorry for his health but I also wonder if now when reality bites if he feels the same.

Your sadness and disappointment is beautifully showcased, Cassie, in this piece!

This can not be called a 'rant'...it's a reflection...a sort of wringing hands in despair. It shows the care...for a younger sibling...and a warning for others going too fast to gather fruit of their labour/success...ignoring wise calls from behind.

I can relate to this...as husband's ambitious younger brother is going through the same plight...healthwise! :(

Cassie, I love the rhyme scheme in this piece. I've read it through several times and nothing jars. I feel you have a winner here. Reading it out loud it's almost a roller coaster of sound that runs well. In this genre this is good.

Life chooses paths for us, yet doubt

We pay. The color of our hair

and eyes, the fathers, sons and whereabouts,

prudently chosen yet “unfair”,

we weep as if the Spirit didnt care.

We change directions, and life’s choice

Refuse. And choose more journeyed roads,

The quicker ones, of lights and traffic noise,

but sweet delightful ways add load,

and years of debt must finally explode.

For none is free, and for desire

We often pay inflatedly;

Yet even falling in filth or in fire

Can build a man eventually

For pain and sorrow teach effectively.

When blind we are and do not see

Our need to rise, transcend, progress,

Or know that we’re leaves of the same great tree

Our mission is Life’s to address.

For we are one, man, universe and sea.

I can honestly say I liked the free verse version of this type of "rant" more than this poem.

But it still reads very nicely.

By the way, do you think you could spend a little time helping Gio Mega Crappus with his poetry? It's awful and I think every new poem he puts up is really just a cry for help.

Meanwhile, back to the unrelated issue of CASSIES POEM:

I like that you wrote this with your usual grace on a subject obviously painful and real. Thank you for sharing.

Heya Cassie, I kind of felt that the person shifted from you to him in this piece is it me or does it? I will have to sit down and try and write right again one day but I like writing wrong too much, it is FUN!

I would not change a thing...imho!

it is hard to watch ones you love destroy themselves

slowly and then health issues take over....

this is on my tops list for sure!

♥♥

..I love this form of a telling slant rant...a nicer version of what I would have written.

that is why you are so Classy Cassie

..

Maybe Iano can help Gio as well...I see that HH is trying too

Well done you guys!!