I'm Farther Away Than Before

[Todd]

Hi Pauline,

Let me give you some comments on your poem:

You seem to have some inconsistent punctuation. You may want to either abandon it, or add more. Doing it halfway is more confusing.

Laying in the Pineville grass, --Should it be Lying since it doesn't seem past tense, and there is no object?
I'm farther away than before
I'm not sure he ever thinks about me anymore
Or if he believes in anything more than his path--I'm not sure the last two lines add much outside of mostly flat reportage. There are better lines in the piece. I'm biased to want all of your lines to be those.

My man can not find the fall's crafted
wildflowers that usually grow at his door--If they usually grow maybe they're are not there at the moment. Consider cutting the word and this will probably read stronger

I'm farther away than before
and no one's willing to be a martyr,
there's no boat to bring me out of these waters,
not a knight in shining armor--If you're going to use the cliche, even to poke at it a bit, try messing with some aspect of it so we take it at a slant. Otherwise, it becomes noise that we tune out.

Oh, I've seen this all before,
Lived it once, twice, thrice and more--You could probably cut and more, if it is more it makes the reader wonder why the once, twice, thrice is important to count
it always plays out the same but I'm convinced--Not a bad line break
you love me more than you say--Something more than just the statement maybe move toward some imagery to get the point across

I'm stamping on the accelator
coming your way and I've forgotten the breaks all together!--Breaks is either misspelled. or clever. If it's intended to be clever you probably need another line to play with it more or it will come off as a typo.
or is it perhaps I've never pressed my foot on the gas?
And I'm still only here, laying in the pineville grass

And my man can not find the fall's crafted
wildflowers that usually grow at his door

Those are my initial thoughts. I think you could develop this nicely. I hope some of that helps.

Best,

Todd