Pride and Acceptance ?

Hey there =divafica my name is Ed, and I'm from #SuperWritersHelp. You asked for your work to be critiqued as a poem, so here goes.

I'll start of by saying that this is a subject I know quite a lot about. You've chosen to approach it in a way that is quite general and I guess that's alright. Personally, I would have liked something a little more focused in on feelings (while still keeping in generally broad.) You deal with wide topics like hate, being verbally abused etc but don't move into anything specific. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, that's just what I would have liked to have seen more of.

They loathe me; (a good starting line. It sets up the circumstances well. I wonder how you could incorporate the narrator's feelings into that one line too? Maybe italicise the 'they' to show that 'they' loathe me (I don't loathe myself).
they shout the worst words (nice alliteration)
right in my ear, (not very interesting as a line. What is it about the ear that makes it interesting? Because it's close? Intimate? Personal? Or because it means he can't ignore them? It's all the narrator ever hears?)
burning, scathing words. (I find this interesting. You've chosen words that are hot, fire-like words. Personally, I've never felt like that. The words themselves might feel hot, but that's the opposite of the effect they have. If anything, it makes you feel colder, because you're isolated and have no one how accepts you. It might be nice to have 'burning, freezing words' to get this duality of the meaning)

I am proud... Proud of me, of who I am, of what I am. (This isn't particularly original, but I guess it gets the point across.)

I'm alone now, shunned. (is 'now' needed? When was there a time the narrator wasn't alone? I'm a bit confused. You say 'they loathe me' as an indefinite clause (it's continual), but 'now' suggests that something has changed. For example, coming out, and 'now' he/she is hated for it)
I curl up in the wastelands
of something I once recognised (nice enjambment)
as my most intimate identity,
but now feels foreign and outlandish; (nice alliterations over these lines, and repetitions of something 'wild/baron' in 'wastelands' and 'outland')
like myself.

I am not wrong, they just don't understand me. (again, this 'thought' is very unoriginal. I don't know if you're speaking personally here or not, but to me, this is just something people expect gay/bi people to think. I don't think that's true. For me, it's not that people don't understand, it's the fact that they're unwilling to try. They've been told something is 'bad' or 'wrong', they don't argue.)

(I am proud.I don't need anyone elseto accept me;I accept myself.)

As for the last line, it's an interesting effect… getting smaller. I think there should be some spaces between the phrases, because at the moment there aren't. Are you suggesting that this is the 'curling' up mentioned before? Are you saying that the narrator doesn't fully believe what he/she is saying? That everything dwindles in the end? Maybe even life? One voice isn't heard? I love it, it could have many many meanings.

Well, that's my thoughts on this poem. I really do like it, but it may be just a little bit too general. But I guess I only say that because I know, and have those thoughts, so I can't find them new or thought-prevoking. I've always thought, in any poem, that in order to be new and different, you need to think of a different view, or something personal enough to make it specific to you. Whoever, 'you' is, it doesn't matter. That could be made up. But the emotion will still be there.

Let me know if you've got any questions about anything I've said <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/b/b…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Big Grin)"/>