Formaldehyde (ver. 4)

[just mercedes]

Draft #2 has been posted, taking several of dukealien's suggestions (though not all). Notes below.

S1
* The first four lines have gone through serious revision, and still feel incomplete.
* Minor adjustments to the last six lines, formatting adjusted for syllable count.

S2
* Punctuation lightly adjusted, dirty throats -> swollen throats
* Still trying to alter S2 L12 "a fool who gently slid into the night" (a shameful way to quote, I feel)

S3
* Major changes to much of S3. Word choice adjusted, and many lines altered severely or entirely. This was originally the stanza I rushed the most, hence the cliches in draft #1. I spent a long time writing these three, by the time I reached the third, I just wanted to get it posted to get some feedback.

Overall, I feel it's slowly shaping into the piece it's supposed to be. I'm still unsure of S1 L2-4, S2 L12, and S3 L14 in particular.

You deleted the first draft when you should have left it there, and posted the edit above it. That's so readers can follow the revisions.

You may not have noticed how that works, in the other threads.