Nightmare

[shemthepenman]

hello,

and so, here we go. . .

one of my first poems, not to sure how good it actually is, but im looking forward to any critique. - regardless of whether it is one of your first poems, i am going to assume it's pretty spot on in terms of the basics. if not, you may want to consider re-posting it in another forum; of course, i am being a little disingenuous as i have already read the poem, and therefore know it should not be in this forum.

Nightmare - i have added a space between the title and the body

tonight ill lie awake in bed, - you know how i said, just moments ago, that i was going to assume you have all the basics sorted; well, after reading the first line, i am now going to assume the opposite of that. tonight should have a capital t, ill has an apostrophe in it [i'll], and the i in ill [sic] should have a capital i,- note, the capitalisation of letters is an overused convention, in my opinion, and i admire your consistancy.
a pillow underneath my head. - this is filler to force the couplet.
your body underneath my arm,
to keep you safe from all harm. - ok, so this is a terrible line. 'keep you safe from harm' is a cliché of the 'never use it, ever' variety and the metre is inexplicable. furthermore, it is this line that tells me [the reader] that the grammar mistakes, the lack of capitalisation, the superfluous second line, the metre problems, and everything that has come before, are not simply due to a lack of editing or proofreading, but that the author simply doesn't really know what they are doing. 
your feet are cold, your eyes are closed,
as you sleep you still look posed. - this may be becoming a trope of mine: punctuation, either use it right or not at all. i won't tell you again.
through cotton candy clouds you fly, - nope.
in dreams you have, while i just lie,
beside you in my double bed.
i ponder if i'm in your head. - bed/head rhyme appears twice. repetition can be effective, but the rhyme itself is poor, so to do it again seems like maddness.
you drift away, i think of you,
under sheets the colour blue. - the old 'forced rhyme inversion tactic' is like a double slab of bad.
i finally decide to rest, - you see, i actually thought you were being clever with the 'you drift away, i think of you' line, by implying that you are falling asleep; yet, 'i finally decide to rest' kinda fucks that up.
but dreams i've never had the best. - inversion to force rhyme.
i awaken, you're not there,
for every dream theres a nightmare. - ok, so all of that just for some trite folk wisdom about balance. and yet, this last line, in many ways, elevates the poem on a conceptual level. the dream, spoken as if awake, and then waking up to a proverbial nightmare. of course, the 'it was all a dream' thing is as old as the hills; but, it does show that you have a intuition about structuring an idea. my advice would be to throw out all the lines in this poem and gently hold on to the idea.

thanks for sharing this poem. again, i would suggest posting in another forum unless you are absolutely sure that you have the grammar and punctuation and spelllllinnng and whatnot all at their best.