Between the Needle and Me

[Wjames]

You said you loved me
but forgot your words in a fifth of gin
And threw it up in the toilet
As you shit all over it again.

You’re a bird that can’t land
And it’s hard for me to see
Lying awake all night thinking
Will you choose the needle or me?

Or will you fly to another bird,
Just as I expect
Why in the world do I love you
So many reasons, and yet; What are the reasons?

You tell me to wait 
For when you find your feet
But I don’t see your smile
in the other girls I meet

So lay me down in the meantime
Torture me every other day
As your heroin veins make you smile
A lot more than I may

In general, rhyming poetry is a lot smoother with a constant meter. There are some good threads on it in the practice threads here if you want to have a look.

My biggest problem with the poem is the bolded question. I don't care about this girl, and your poem has given me no reason to; I can't really empathize with the narrator's love for her, everything she does in the poem is bad. It would be a much more interesting poem if you painted a picture of what the narrator loves about this person, and then show how her problem ruins that.

I also think you could be more specific in your imagery, your first stanza is the best of them because it made me visualize something (the vomit and shit metaphor), most of everything else is just conceptual.

Thanks for sharing, and welcome to the site