Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20160520142144/@comment-26007602-20160521030155

The main problem with this poem is just how awkwardly some of the lines are written. This poem lacks flow because of this and the forced rhyming.

For example: "Would I jump, in the breeze my body a flower?" This line is tremendously bulky on it's own (and it lacks proper punctuation and sentence structure). It interrupts the entire stanza as the reader has to awkwardly read through it. Read it out loud. Doesn't it sound wrong when said aloud?

"Or would I inhale, deep so a breath?" Why do you say "deep so a breath"? It doesn't help the flow and comes off as pretentious with the phrasing choice. You could have said "Or would I inhale, easing in a breath?" Obviously, my example isn't much better, but it gets the same point across without the weird phrasing.

"Would I jump with a reason distinct?" This is an example of forced rhyming. "Reason distinct" is only in there so you can rhyme with "instinct". It's forced and phrased poorly.

I'm not going to go through every line, but you should be aware that there are many like this.

The next few stanzas are repetitive to read and don't add anything to the poems structure. Seven times, you use the structure: "Would I..." Followed by "Or would I...". It's not interesting to read through and doesn't give us a better insight into the narrator. Just because he repeats himself seven times doesn't mean that the point is being reinforced. We understood the point from the beginning; there's no need to keep saying it in the same fashion.

I'll be honest: this doesn't read like horror at all, but more of some weepy teen poetry. It just comes off so pretentiously: "Should I jump? Will I be missed? This world is so hard..." We've heard it before. If you're going to do this premise, you need to do something new with it.