"hanging fire" by Audre Lorde

I read the poem called "Hanging Fire." An overall summary of the poem would about an insecure girl who has lots of worries on her mind. The author ends each stanza with "and momma's in the bedroom with the door closed." The author is trying to show us that the girl in the story feels like she is being ignored by her mother through all of her problems, and she keeps repeating it to make sure we make notice of it. Also in each stanza is her saying "what if I die", or "will I live long enough?" I think that this girl has very negative thoughts has a very low self confidence. She doesn't think that she gets enough attention, and she may be somewhat depressed. There is not one line in this poem where she says something positive. Another thing that she repeats a lot is the future. She talks about a lot about, what will she do for the next party, or what will she wear tomorrow. This indicates that she worries about the future a lot. So she pretty much worries about everything, or at least it sounds like it from this poem.

The word choice that the author chooses to use makes the reader feel bad for the girl in the poem. She uses I a lot, which means that she is mostly worrying about herself. In the second stanza- starting at line 19 and ending at line 21- she says that she has nothing that she wants to do but has too much to do. I think that here, she used a good choice of words to help you feel bad for her. She could have said here that she was always busy. When she says that she has nothing that she wants to do, she makes it seem like that she never has any plans, which makes you pity her. I also noticed a kind of opposite pattern. In the first stanza- in the second and third line- she first says that her skin has betrayed her, but then in the next line says that there is a boy that she cannot live without. She quickly jumps from her skin (which she has personafied here) leaving her in bad conditions, to talk about a boy who she can't live without. Then in the second stanza- in the 19th and 20th line- she fist goes on to say that there is nothing she wants to do, and then goes on to say that she has too much to do. So she switches from nothing to do, to having too much to do. So I think that this girl has a lot of worrying and bad thoughts in her mind, and this is made clear in the word choice, and layout of this poem.