Detailed Analysis of Hide and Seek

In this video, we cover:

• The Narrative Voice: Why Scannell uses the second person ("you") to immerse the reader, recreate the child's internal monologue, or represent an older, detached observer looking back on a formative memory.

• In Medias Res & Initial Confidence: The imperative and exclamatory opening ("Call out. Call loud: 'I'm ready!' Come and find me!") creating immediate play energy, followed by the child's certainty ("They'll never find you").

• Synaesthesia & Sensory Imagination: Describing the shed sacks as smelling "like the seaside" and the visual darkness as "salty dark", blending senses to show how the child initially views the setting as safe and playful.

• Shifting from Caution to Tension: The structural impact of the turn at "but", using end-stopped lines, caesurae, and the probability of "they'll probably be searching" to slow the pace as the child hides.

• Predator vs. Prey Imagery: How the zoomorphic metaphor "when they come prowling in" introduces an animalistic tension, casting the seekers as predators and the child as prey.

• The Climax of Apprehension: Four consecutive imperatives in a single line ("Don't breathe. Don't move. Stay dumb. Hide in your blindness.") showing the child restricting basic bodily functions out of desperation not to be caught.

• Anticlimax & Temporary Relief: The chaotic dynamic verbs ("stumble," "mutter," "scuffle") suddenly cutting off with "and they're gone", restoring a brief, hubristic confidence.

• Hostility in the Environment: The physical toll of hiding, from the cold biting through the coat to the sensory dissonance of the "dark damp smell of sand" moving in the throat like suffocation.

• The Broken Rhyme Scheme: How the light touch rhyme pattern is broken when the triumphant shout of "I've caught you!" is met with the sudden silence of "nothing stirs".

• Personified Nature & Abandonment: Analysing the darkening garden watching, the bushes holding their breath, and the sun disappearing as symbols of total isolation.

• The Final Rhetorical Question: Why ending on "where are they who sought you?" shifts the focus from childhood play to the vulnerability of the human condition and the pain of being left behind.

Timestamps

• 0:00 – The Core Premise: Childhood Innocence vs. Vulnerability & Extended Metaphor

• 1:46 – The Second-Person Narrative Voice: Reader Immersion & Inner Monologue

• 3:42 – In Medias Res: Imperatives, Exclamatory Speech, & Excitement to Play

• 5:02 – The Tool Shed: The Seaside Simile, "Salty Dark," & Synaesthesia

• 8:20 – The Shift to Caution: "But," End-Stopping, & "The Floor is Cold"

• 11:06 – Predator and Prey: Zoomorphism ("Prowling") & Whispering at the Door

• 12:48 – Climax of Tension: Four Imperatives ("Don't Breathe. Don't Move.") & Blindness

• 15:18 – Chaotic Verbs & The Anticlimax: Stumble, Mutter, Scuffle, & Gone

• 16:45 – Temporary Relief: Modals of Certainty & Hubristic Confidence

• 18:10 – The Return of Apprehension: Pacing, Caesura, & The Spreading Cold

• 20:26 – The Sand in the Throat: Muddled Senses & Suffocating Imagery

• 21:30 – "I've Caught You!": Uncurling, Claiming Victory, & The Broken Rhyme

• 24:02 – The Hostile Environment: The Darkening Garden & Bushes Holding Their Breath

• 25:44 – "The Sun is Gone": The Loss of Warmth, Joy, & Protection

• 27:31 – The Ending Interrogative: "Where Are They Who Sought You?" & Walking Wounded

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• Poetry Technique Bank: A dedicated guide designed specifically to master poetic form, metre, rhyme schemes, and structural choices across both seen anthology and unseen poetry questions.

Lesson Transcript

0:00 – The Core Premise: Childhood Innocence vs. Vulnerability & Extended Metaphor

This is one of those poems that is about what it seems to be about and also isn't about what it seems to be about. So yes, it is a game of hide-and-seek being played by a child, but it's also an extended metaphor for a whole host of potential things. So I'm going to start by taking it from the perspective of this is about a child playing hide-and-seek, and analyzing it from that angle. And then once we've done that, we'll be able to think about: okay, what therefore are the other ways of looking at this, and the deeper meaning and symbolism to this poem?

If we take it from the child angle, then the theme becomes pretty clear: childhood. And part of that childhood is the innocence of childhood, but also the vulnerability of childhood. And the innocence of childhood is about the sort of excitement and thrills of childhood and the simple ways of looking at life, while the vulnerability of childhood is how we can feel isolated and abandoned, and not really realize when we've put ourselves in a more precarious position.

And you might be listening to that thinking: this is just a game of hide-and-seek, calm down, surely it can't be that deep! And to that I would say, clearly you've forgotten what it's like to be a little kid. When you are a little kid, hide-and-seek is as deep as it gets! No, I take that back: tag—tag is as deep as it gets! And it's the same concept here: we're seeing a kid who, you know, yes, we might think it's just a game of hide-and-seek, but to them it has so much more meaning.

1:46 – The Second-Person Narrative Voice: Reader Immersion & Inner Monologue

I want to start by talking about the narrative voice of this poem, because I think it's quite an interesting choice that you don't see that commonly in poems, and that is using the second person. There are a few different interpretations we can take from the second person: one is that it is about immersing the reader in the childhood experience, and therefore we're literally put into the shoes of the child by using the second-person point of view. Another interpretation is that actually the speaker of this poem is like the child's own inner voice telling them what to do, so it's like we're getting an inside look into the mind of a child and what they're thinking and feeling.

Third angle is that perhaps this is like an this child when they are older looking looking back on this memory and remembering what happened. A lot of the poem supports this idea of it being very much a child's voice, but there are little more ominous, darker moments that a child would not be capable of being so foreboding um, and that could therefore perhaps hint at the speaker being not necessarily a full-blown separate character, but more of a outside, distant observer.

Regardless of the interpretation um you personally would argue for—and, you know, the case can be made for all three—the key thing about this voice is how it helps us to track the mood of the child by the tone that the voice is using. So we're going to see sort of encouraging, confident tones when the child is really happy and loving the game and excited; we're going to see a foreboding tone, a tense tone for when our child is feeling nervous and confused and doesn't understand what's going on. So tracking the tone of this poem is the way you basically know what our child is feeling.

3:42 – In Medias Res: Imperatives, Exclamatory Speech, & Excitement to Play

What we have in the opening of the poem is most definitely an excited tone, an eagerness to play. And there's a few ways that we can tell that: one is the fact that we've got these imperative sentences and exclamatory sentences. While our imperative sentences serve as like a sort of inner voice of our child encouraging them to play and get involved, the exclamatory sentences in the direct speech show the excitement that our child feels to be involved in this game.

So I guess when you think about it from that very opening line, that use of the imperative in the voice of the speaker, followed then by the direct speech in the child connected with the colon, creates a cause and effect. And that is part of how we can um argue that this poem is being spoken as a sort of inner voice of the child, because what the speaker of the poem thinks and says is what the child then does. We've also got the fact that this poem begins in medias res, which just means in the middle of action. And the reason that that is significant is because it creates that energy of play as well, because you're in the middle of something, so that's also part of adding to, in this beginning of the poem, the excitement for play.

5:02 – The Tool Shed: The Seaside Simile, "Salty Dark," & Synaesthesia

Our child is choosing to hide in a tool shed, so they say: "The sacks in the toolshed smell like the seaside." So they're describing the location of where they are. The imagery, the simile "like the seaside," is a very cute way of creating our childlike voice, because what it does is it shows the imagination of our child. Seasides we can think of as being connected to joy and play, a day at the seaside, and so our child is associating this environment that they're in with joy and play as well, and making that connection. That's going to be significant later on when, of course, the way they perceive their environment changes.

So from a structural point, you can argue that this opening uh second line is about establishing that our child feels safe and comfortable and happy in the environment, and that's going to change later. The actual environment doesn't change; just the way the child feels in that environment changes. And of course the reason that changes, that shift in how they view the environment, is because what's also going to shift is how vulnerable they feel. So right now they feel happy and comfortable and confident, and then that's going to change later.

Another way that we see the sort of confidence um, the confident tone of our child, is in this bit of: "They'll never find you." So you've got the modal verb of "will," which indicates a really strong level of certainty, and then you've got the adverb of "never," which—I mean, do you need me to tell you what "never" means? I don't think you do, right? So that shows that confidence: by using that modal verb and that adverb, we get a really confident tone from our child. They think they're going to win the game.

They say: "They'll never find you in this salty dark." Now this is synaesthesia. I'm going to attempt to spell it off the top of my head, but if I write this out incorrectly, when I go to edit this video, I'll make the correct spelling appear on the screen um, but synaesthesia is when you mix the uh different senses. So in this case, a visual of "dark" is being described with something that you can taste: "salty." So it's crossing two different senses.

Now why does this synaesthesia matter? Well, I think it has a similar effect to the seaside of creating our child's sense of imagination, and I think is also an interesting way of thinking about how children experience their the world around them um, because it's essentially two different senses being triggered simultaneously, and he's blending the two together. So I think it could reflect that simple way of looking at the world um where you don't necessarily separate everything. To be honest though, I think the biggest significance of these two lines is going to come later, because we're going to have a reference to the dark again, we're going to have a reference to sand which will echo back to this seaside. So I, to be honest, would analyze these lines more in comparison to what we're going to look at later.

8:20 – The Shift to Caution: "But," End-Stopping, & "The Floor is Cold"

Despite our child's confident tone, there is still an awareness that they need to be careful uh, and we get that from the "but": "but be careful that your feet aren't sticking out. / Wiser not to risk another shout." The word "but" shifts our tone to create a little bit of cautiousness, and the fact that this child over these two lines is really carefully considering how best to win the game shows how seriously they're taking it.

Oh, and also I would just add to that as well: the fact that these are end-stopped lines, which means they end in full stops rather than having enjambment, also adds to that cautiousness, because it's like they're slowing down to think. Obviously that was a relatively quick tone shift: our confident tone was only like three lines um, and then all of a sudden it shifted. And I think that just reflects children in the way that their moods can change very rapidly, especially if you consider that the tonal shift happens with the enjambment—it's not even it's within a single sentence: "They'll never find you in this salty dark," confident, comma, "but be careful," caution.

The cautious tone continues in the following lines: "The floor is cold. They'll probably be searching / The bushes near the swing." The reason I say we've got more cautiousness in these lines, there's a few different reasons: so we've got that stark, simple image in "The floor is cold," and the discomfort that is implied by that image of the coldness. You've also got the caesura that is created within this line—caesura is when there's a pause in a poetic line—and that's similar to what I was saying about the end-stopping. If you see how often we've got that end-stopping and the pauses that that creates, it reflects what I was saying before about the slowing down, the hesitating, the pausing to think, to listen to what is going on outside, which adds to our cautious tone.

There is also a shift if we look at the word "probably," and that shift from "never": "They will never find you in this salty dark" to "They'll probably be searching the bushes near the swing." So obviously "probably" has a significantly less likelihood um than "never," and so the child has gone from feeling absolutely confident and certain about the outcome of this game to now wondering what could be happening in this game. And I think that reflects the cautiousness as well: not speaking with the same level of certainty; it's not "they will definitely be searching the bushes near the swing," it's "they're probably doing that."

And then uh more caesura in the next line, so you've got this pattern of end-stopping and caesura all just really slow slowing things down.

11:06 – Predator and Prey: Zoomorphism ("Prowling") & Whispering at the Door

And it says: "Whatever happens you mustn't sneeze when they come prowling in." So we've got this zoomorphism of "prowling." Now zoomorphism, you can just say metaphor um if you've not heard the term zoomorphism before and don't want to overcomplicate your life, just say metaphor, it works exactly the same uh, but zoomorphism is when you have human beings being compared to animals. And so the "prowling" creates a predator-prey dynamic, whereby our child would be the prey and is being hunted by the predators, which adds to a tension in the poem. And I would say that is the beginning where it shifts from not just caution, to outright tension and fear building. And obviously the fear is that anticipation of: will they be caught, won't they be caught?

The poem then says: "Here they are, whispering at the door." So the present tense of this poem is quite powerful in adding to the tension, as is, you know, combining with that uh second-person perspective, because it has such an immediacy to it, you know? They're actually right there, right now. And it says that they're whispering at the door: "You’ve never heard them sound so hushed before." So that pattern of "whispering" and uh "hushed," the atmosphere now feels very quiet compared to our opening of the poem with, you know, "Call out, call out," and that secretive atmosphere adds to that feeling of our child perhaps being a little bit isolated, a little bit more vulnerable, because they are left out of the secret.

12:48 – Climax of Tension: Four Imperatives ("Don't Breathe. Don't Move.") & Blindness

I think the tension reaches the climax in this next line: "Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dumb. Hide in your blindness." So obviously there's a lot of techniques going on in that line that we want to break down. This is probably one of the best lines of the poem to really capture that apprehension that child is feeling. You've got the imperatives: "Don't breathe," "Don't move," "Stay dumb," "Hide"—you got four imperatives in a row! There's the caesura and the fact that they're all very short sentences, really slowing things down on a much more intense scale than what we've seen before.

The imperatives uh I forgot to say create a feeling of like desperation, because it's like our child is sort of quickly running through all the different things they need to make sure they do or don't do in order to not be caught. And of course, if you think about what it is they're saying not to do—"Don't breathe," "Don't move," uh "Stay dumb" is um be silent, don't talk—but it's really basic, simple uh bodily functions essentially that our child is not allowing themselves to do. So it it fits with what we had before of not letting their feet stick out, you know? They're taking this game really seriously and are really desperate not to be caught, hence why they will do whatever it takes, including holding their breath.

The "Hide in your blindness": the blindness is a reference to the fact that they are in a dark room, they can't see what's going on. But also you could say it has a double meaning to it, because, you know, it's like: is the child blind to what the others are doing outside as well? They're blind to their own uh vulnerability, how isolated they are from the people that they are playing with, so it can also reflect just the way that they are, you know, oblivious to what is really going on.

I think this "Hide in your blindness" and the fact that it has that double meaning is what could be used to support the idea that the speaker of this poem is not a child, because a child is not going to have such self-awareness that they are aware of their own obliviousness. And that's why it would fit more with an adult voice looking from a distance at this situation, whether that adult voice is the older version of the child recalling a memory, or you as the reader of this poem—not necessarily adult voice, but older voice um—you as the reader reading this poem and recognizing the vulnerability of the child in a way that they don't.

15:18 – Chaotic Verbs & The Anticlimax: Stumble, Mutter, Scuffle, & Gone

We then have this imagery of: they're moving closer, "Someone stumbles, mutters, their words and laughter scuffle, and they're gone." That imagery and the triadic structure within it of the uh "stumble," "mutter," "scuffle" is an interesting uh use of dynamic verbs, because it's quite a chaotic energy, disorganized energy. So what that does is adds to our suspense, because of course we are getting this event from the perspective of the child: we don't know what's going on, what is it they're saying, why are they laughing, and then now why have they gone? So that disordered movement, that adds to a sense of suspense and confusion that our child is feeling, because they don't understand what the people they're playing against are doing.

I also think that having within two lines a shift from moving closer—building that tension of: oh, will I be caught, will I be caught—and then within this like same, not sentence because you got the semicolon, but like within this same image, breaking it with "they're gone," creates an anticlimactic moment. Having a building of tension by moving them closer, so so close in the poem, to them being just gone.

16:45 – Temporary Relief: Modals of Certainty & Hubristic Confidence

Now that they're gone, our child's confidence starts to return a little bit; perhaps they're feeling quite relieved because they've not been caught, and they're starting to think: okay, maybe I can win this game um, because we have this: "Don't come out just yet; they'll try the lane / And then the greenhouse and then back here again."

And again, it's that modal verb of "will". Remember before it was "they'll probably be searching the bushes," now again it's that confidence of predicting what these players are going to do, predicting their next moves. And then of course, it's: "They must be," that modal of certainty, "thinking you're very clever," essentially complimenting himself, "and getting more puzzled." So you've got that juxtaposition between "you're so clever" and "they're puzzled" that takes you out, takes the child away from that position of vulnerability into a position of strength and power. They are going to win the game, and their opponents are going to be confused as to how they've done it and won't find them.

18:10 – The Return of Apprehension: Pacing, Caesura, & The Spreading Cold

This return to confident tone, though, is brief, because we have this uh line: "It seems a long time since they went away." And once again, we've gone from—if you look at those four lines we just looked at, it's two rounds of enjambment that gives it a sort of longer lines, makes our child seem more comfortable; we're back to very short lines in this next chunk. In fact, for the remainder of the poem, there is no more enjambment. For the rest of this poem, it's all end-stopping, and we're going to have lots more uh caesura going through the thing as well. So you can just see from all the things I'm circling: lots and lots and lots of pausing.

So the tension is going to return, and the use of end-stopping and caesura is a key way that our poet does that. Do you remember how I said that the child never says what they're feeling, and it's the tone that shows the mood? This is a very observant tone, and what the tone is showing, I think, is the apprehension, the fear of our child suddenly becoming aware of their vulnerability, of their isolation, eventually of the fact that they have been abandoned by the other players.

"It seems a long time since they went away." It's quite a simple declarative sentence, and yet "long time since they went away," that really enhances a feeling of being alone. We've then got: "Your legs are stiff, the cold bites through your coat." So this is echoing back to before when we were cold: "The floor is cold." And so it's like that cold that before was just in the environment is now spreading up through the child's body, so the hostile impact of the environment is spreading through them. That zoomorphism in the personification—cuz humans bite, too—of "the cold bites" is going back to more, as well, of our animalistic imagery: "when they come prowling in." So it's using a lot of the same devices as it did before when our child was feeling tense and nervous again, but arguably is heightening them even more, because where before they were prowling nearby when they when they come prowling in, now it's actively at the child: it's biting through your coat, so it's much more immediate attack of the child right then and there.

20:26 – The Sand in the Throat: Muddled Senses & Suffocating Imagery

Similarly: "The dark damp smell of sand moves in your throat." You may remember I said this is an echo back to the lines in the beginning of the poem about the smelling like the seaside in the salty dark. Whereas before, when our child was the one sort of in control of that, they were creating the imagery, they were existing in it, it was similar to it; now it's attacking them.

The sand being in their throat is a very uncomfortable image, because it echoes something of like suffocation. And it's still using synaesthesia, but things are even more muddled now, because you've got "dark," which is visual, you've got a "damp smell," which is olfactory, and you've got "moves in your throat," which is tactile. So we've got three different senses all really being muddled together and adding to that dissonance and discomfort that our child is feeling. So our prior happy imagery of the seaside and the salty dark has now become ominous with our dark, damp smell of sand moving in your throat.

21:30 – "I've Caught You!": Uncurling, Claiming Victory, & The Broken Rhyme

The child decides they don't like this and they want to get away from it, so they say: "It's time to let them know that you're the winner." Essentially, they're choosing to end the game and declare they have won rather than wait for the people any longer. So we have this moment that seems like it's going to return to a happy, excited energy, because it mirrors the beginning of the poem.

So the: "Push off the sacks. Uncurl and stretch. That’s better." Reminds us of at the beginning of the poem: the "Call out, call loud," and then the exclamatory. So it's that imperatives and exclamatory of like feeling in control. If you think about the "uncurl and stretch," it's taking back control of one's body in a way that they couldn't perhaps have in "Don't breathe. Don't move. Stay dumb." So that "That's better" and its exclamatory would suggest that our child is back to feeling more confident and happier again.

And then we have it again: "Out of the shed and call to them: 'I’ve won!'"—mirroring the opening line again, right? Imperative, colon, exclamatory direct speech: "'Here I am! Come and own up I’ve caught you!'" So this whole section here appears to be like a mini returned confidence because of how much it's it's similar to the opening of the poem.

But things very quickly change again: "The darkening garden watches." This poem is technically full of voltas, so many different changes in emotion as it goes through, and the frequency of those voltas is a key way of showing just how up and down a childhood experience can be: of being happy one second, scared the next.

What's also interesting about that little moment of confidence is the way that the rhyme scheme undermines it. So this poem does have a rhyme scheme, but it's very, very light touch: it's A-A-B-C-D-D, so the fourth and fifth lines keep rhyming. So it goes: "me," "seaside," "dark," "out," "shout"; "searching," "happens," "in," "door," "before"; "blindness," "mutters," "gone," "lane," "again"; "clever," "over," "away," "coat," "throat"; "winner," "better," "won," "you," "stirs." It breaks the rhyme scheme at the point where there is the final shift from a confident moment of "own up I’ve caught you" to "nothing stirs." So it's a very jarring break, and really adds to that suddenness of the twist, of the volta, of the change for our child, where they had such confidence and then realize they shouldn't do, because they are all alone and have been abandoned.

24:02 – The Hostile Environment: The Darkening Garden & Bushes Holding Their Breath

These last few lines are rife with metaphorical language that really enhances the feeling of abandonment and isolation that the child feels, because essentially what the poet does is he personifies the environment to feel like that is also leaving our child alone and not helping them. So there's no people around, and literally nothing in the environment is going to help our child.

So you've got "The darkening garden watches." That use of "darkening" has two meanings: first of all, our literal: the sun is setting, it's getting darker; but also "darkening" reflecting the way the child feels about the environment that they are in, the fact that it is suddenly feeling much more foreboding and ominous because they've realized that they are alone. The passiveness of the dynamic verb "watches," as well as the follow-up "nothing stirs," is part of making the child feel really isolated because of its stillness, its lack of intervention, even though our child is alone.

That continues with our personification of the bushes as holding their breath: "The bushes hold their breath." So this personification is part of, yes, creating that passiveness of, you know, the bushes are doing nothing, they're just holding their breath, not getting involved; but also that perhaps a foreboding, because you often hold your breath before something is about to happen, you know? Like you know like, "Oh, it's going to happen," and then you hold your breath. Again, none of that is literally happening; it is all metaphorical. Which, if we think of this poem as being the child's inner voice, it's the child's imagination viewing the environment in that way, and our poet is sort of recreating how hostile this environment now feels to our child.

25:44 – "The Sun is Gone": The Loss of Warmth, Joy, & Protection

"The sun is gone"—is again literal: sun is setting, but also metaphorical. If we think of suns often symbolizing happiness and joy, then "the sun is gone" becomes pretty clear meaning, right? Joy is gone.

So across all of these images, we've just got a complete absence of movement and also protection, and there's just a feeling of isolation and abandonment. Our child is full-on alone; not even the sun has hung about!

I think what's also interesting about the way that Vernon Scannell uses the metaphorical language is the frequency of it, and what it suggests about the way the child is using their imagination. In the beginning of the poem, it was quite sparing um: we just had the simile "like the seaside," and then we had the "when they come prowling in" zoomorphism; it was quite sparing. And also, I feel like simile has a stronger detachment to it than a metaphor, because with a simile, the fact that you're saying "like" something, you show that you know you are making comparisons; whereas metaphors much more blur the line between reality and the meaning you're trying to create in your metaphor. What we've got at the end here by using personification, that is that blend, that is that massive blend between reality and the figurative comparison that you're making.

And there's a lot of it as well in a much shorter chunk of the poem. Is it suggesting that, you know, as children become more afraid, more tense, their imagination is going into a kind of overdrive in exacerbating their feelings of isolation and abandonment and worry and all of that, because it's suddenly projecting it onto the world around them and they're seeing their fears? It's not just that the sun is setting, but it's this feeling of the sun being gone and they're leaving them.

27:31 – The Ending Interrogative: "Where Are They Who Sought You?" & Walking Wounded

The poem ends on this line: "Yes, here you are. But where are they who sought you?" So we end on an interrogative.

What's significant about that, if we think about the privileged position of the last line of the poem, then it's like the poem is deliberately choosing to end not on the happy excitement of play in childhood, but on the isolation, the abandonment, the fear. And that is why it's possible to make the case that this poem is not about the happy, innocent fun of childhood, because that's not the way it's chosen to end; that's not where it's placed its focus on. Frankly, that's not what the focus has been on for the majority of the poem. And so if it is going to have an end like that, that could perhaps suggest the poem is about something more than just a game of hide-and-seek.

So some people have argued that this poem is like an extended metaphor for the game of life, if you will, and, you know, how we can't trust others, or how everything can turn against us when we don't expect it, and how we can have an arrogance and think we're succeeding in something when really it's our own hubris and we're not. You'll have to comment below with your different ways of looking at this as being a giant extended metaphor, and what it's an extended metaphor for. But essentially, if you take the parallels of what the child goes through, how can you apply that to other things?

What's also interesting is that the collection of poems that Vernon Scannell published "Hide and Seek" in is called Walking Wounded, and that collection had a lot of poems in it linked to war and the psychological impact of war, and a lot of poems linked to really dark feelings of isolation and abandonment. I'm not necessarily suggesting there is a war parallel to "Hide and Seek," but it would make sense that if it's designed to be part of that collection, that it's not just about a child's game of hide-and-seek, but what it's really about is the way that we can become as human beings vulnerable, and the way that we can become isolated and abandoned. So it's part of the reason why he's using the "you": to create that universality to this experience. We have all been this child.

So make sure you let me know in the comments what you think this poem could be an extended metaphor for, and I really hope you've enjoyed it, because I freaking hate this poem! Okay, bye.