Night Terrors (finished)

[billy]

first and foremost i enjoyed the read, the conflict of dark and light the fear of having to live in only one of them. the syntax needs a little work and some of the cliches could be swapped out. [swallowed whole] used twice. the last two lines intimate a need to sleep while fearful, thankful to woken by the rooster. though it may not be intended i se a sort of duality of many things at play, light and dark, which in turn can represent good and bad and many more opposites. not sure how to use them but it does feel you have an over abundance of comma in the poem.

Vespertine

The air is always flat this time of night,
flat and cold and quiet, like the lake outside,
in wintertime. My breaths, I slow down, I steady, i read this as breasts, with a lisp, this is what bad syntax does, it plays with the words in a bad way, it doesn't work. it's not in verse so why make it looks forced? a suggestion would be [I slow down my breath/ing, I steady] or something outside of yoda-speak.
I keep soft: I don't want to break the ice
and drown, get swallowed whole.

When I sleep, I never turn off my room's light, would [the light] seem better,
a sun lamp. Why does no one let me walk outside
at night? There, the twisted trunks of oak are steady
in their places: there, the darkness is sure, here it's unsure if your afraid to be awake or to sleep. though i do like the idea of darkness being sure.
unlike the shadow of my bed.

Like the shadow of my bed, the wilderness, at night, these two lines shouts that your scared of sleeping
is home to creatures fanged and clawed. But outside,
at least, the horrors are familiar, real and steady
in their motives, while my bed-sheets
shelter only water. nice conceptualisation of drowning while trying not to sleep

I've been swallowed whole, before. I remember light,
cold moonlight, breaking through the winter ice outside,
filling my lungs, choking me, washing away my steady,
never failing faith. Then, I was pulled up
by the rooster's crow. the ending also points out the turmoil faced in the sleeping hours. good image when added to pulled up