Senior Year

[scarlettehale]

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past)

1.
Sunday, 2:03pm,
my father breaks the shower faucet
for the third time this month
my mother drags her body up the stairs
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets

their vows ring in her ears
he throws a wrench at her face
but its blocked
by my father's drunken aim

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot
her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor

she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face,
panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges
imagine the firm handshake
my father once showed me

I lumbar over the threshold
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone

my father's crutch is my savior
he is too drunk to throw anything at my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights

the car lurches backward
a diagonal course
those marks will scar the grass
for years

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration
diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone
the officer's voice
mixes, so irritatingly
with the phone's
electrical buzz

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought
could fix my father

she is a part of the blacktop now
the sun illuminates her umber hair
the grey strands bow toward the light

I pause quickly
will I be that beautiful when
the cool March breeze is the only
thing in this world
willing enough to touch my skin

[Magpie]

Hi, this is quite difficult to read for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is the lack of puctuation. Apart from the commas used in the repitition of 'Sunday' and the time there are only I think three commas and one full stop. Because it is your poem that you have written it is easy for you to read through and understand, but for anyone else it will be really difficult to read through without having to stop and double back on quite a few lines and then work out what you really intended to say.

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past)

1.
Sunday, 2:03pm,                       ---- I don't think that the constant time reference throughout adds anything to the poem. Apart from towards the end where the gap between times is larger the rest are fairly evenly spaced and I think that there are better ways of illustrating how much time has passed between each event. Also if you did want to keep it you only need to state that it is Sunday once.
my father breaks the shower faucet ---- There a lot of instances in this poem of 'my father' and 'my mother' and a lot of them would read better without 'my' especially before 'father', it would make the tone between the narrator and the father a bit colder.
for the third time this month
my mother drags her body up the stairs --- And here is a perfect example of the need for punctuation, it could be understood as it being the third time in a month that the mother drags her body up the stairs. Also this line is awkward, has the mother killed someone and is dragging a body round with her?? 'drags herself' would be clearer but still awkward, I'm not sure if it is possible to drag yourself up stairs.
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets

their vows ring in her ears ---- I presume here that you mean the wedding vows of the couple but it's not at first clear.
he throws a wrench at her face
but its blocked   --- If the reason the wrench misses its target is due the fact that the father is drunk then it isn't blocked, it misses.
by my father's drunken aim

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot
her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor

she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face, --- Is fear ever lazy? 
panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her --- I don't understand these two lines. Does the thump mock her, and is it 'thump' the sound or 'thump' the action as in being thumped by someone?

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges
imagine the firm handshake --- Are you imagining the firm handshake or are you asking the reader to imagine it?
my father once showed me

I lumbar over the threshold --- You mean 'lumber'? 'Lumbar' is a part of the body.
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David --- You could leave this line out and the lines either side of it imply that you are David.
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone  --- There is a possibility of a good image that the reader can grasp in this stanza, although the 'David and Goliath' comparison has been used many times before and therefore could be seen as cliche

my Father's crutch is my savior. 
he is too drunk to throw anything at aim for my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea ---- Again this can be seen as cliche, but will probably be seen first as a bad metaphor, the charecteristics of the father are not fitting in with the characteristics of Moses and therefore it is a bad choice of representation
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream  ---- I may be missing something here, but I'm not quite getting 'lead in the bloodstream'

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru --- Ah, is the lead a reference to petrol perhaps
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights

the car lurches backward  --- 
a diagonal course  ---- I'm not sure if the car can lurch backward diagonally unless we know in realtion to what it is diagonal
those marks will scar the grass
for years

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized ---- Punctuation again would help this stanza to read more clearly.
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration
diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone[.] 
[T]he officer's voice
mixes[, no comma here] so irritatingly --- more puctuation in these three stanzas
with the phone's
electrical buzz[.]

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight --- This stanza doesn't make sense because nostalgia is a looking back or returning to something whereas if it is a famaliar sound, a present everyday sound then it can't be nostalgic.

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought ---- I do like the idea of the image in this stanza the only issue I would have with it would be the choice of dance. Like the cliche states "It takes two to tango" although I'm no expert in the matter.
could fix my father

she is a part of the blacktop now
the sun illuminates her umber hair
the grey strands bow toward the light

I pause quickly
will I be that beautiful when
the cool March breeze is the only
thing in this world
willing enough to touch my skin

The first thing that this poem needs more than anything else is punctuation. I know I have mentioned a fair few times but there were so many places throughout the poem where lines could have been read in more than way. Punctuation would sort this out and from there it would be easier to look at other issues. Also ask yourself if every word in there is absolutely necsessary. If you can take out three or four words in one stanza and not lose any meaning that you intended to convey then those words don't need to be there.
I know that this is only your first poem on this site, so I'm sorry if you think I've been a bit harsh with my critique but this is the Serious Forum so you did kind of jump straight into the fire but this site is also the right place to improve your poetry skills so stick around if you are serious about writing poetry.
Thanks for the read and welcome to the site,

Mark

[Todd]

Hello, here are some comments for your consideration:

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past)

1.--if you're going to use numbers to break the scenes, I don't know if the date/time stamp buys you much. The words alone can tell us that we're in the same scene.
Sunday, 2:03pm,
my father breaks the shower faucet
for the third time this month
my mother drags her body up the stairs
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets


--The weakness here from me is this is more of a rendition in the narrative of this happened and then this happened. Look at your opening line especially what is interesting about "my father breaks the shower faucet"? Even if you are going for a mundane way to set him off it isn't interesting language. The only thing interesting in the opening strophe is "my mother drags her body up the stairs" If this was expanded on more then the mother could see herself as already dead, and that could be interesting. L4 Mental exhaustion wears is telling and not a good way to allow imagery to come forward in the poem. You need a much stronger opening.

their vows ring in her ears--This has possibility if you started possibly remembering their wedding and retelling this as a warping of their marriage tying together with aspects of the ceremony. Instead of her throwing a bouquet she throws a wrench. The vows drawn out a bit more here.
he throws a wrench at her face
but its blocked
by my father's drunken aim--There has to be a way to bring this in more subtlety than just calling it out.

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot
her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor

she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face,
panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

This entire section needs tightening. There's tension in the family got it. This is a lot of words to get that simple idea across. If you haven't read Dorianne Laux's The Tooth Fairy check it out as ways of blending narrative with imagery and action.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her

This is all a bit awkward you are shifting Point of View. You probably need to stay with the I of the poem.

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges-- seems a bit over the top, but cheap interior door maybe.
imagine the firm handshake
my father once showed me--odd way to say: I'm worried that my father even drunk is stronger than me. There are better images to use of casual strength.

I lumbar over the threshold--Lumber (typo) again though words like this come off as self conscious. We don't need to see every transitional step just move to the essence of the encounter.
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David--Not necessary the next line makes the implication clear. You need to take economy where you can find it. 
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone

my father's crutch is my savior--Too telling. Let the reader draw this conclusion don't spell it out.
he is too drunk to throw anything at my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered--This feels like telling us a blow by blow but this method does provide any real stakes or emotional power.

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream--I really think you are bouncing from one set of images to an other set of unrelated images. This really needs a central guiding image that you draw on.

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights--Requires more build up and a bit more subtlety on the line to pull it off. 

the car lurches backward
a diagonal course
those marks will scar the grass
for years--These two lines: those marks...years have promise. It's an observation that allows the environment to convey what it means without you spelling it out so much better than the Subaru one above--because it implies the issue rather than telling us how to interpret.

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.  I feel like some of this needs to be up in 1 and the final Sunday stuff probably belongs here.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration
diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone
the officer's voice
mixes, so irritatingly
with the phone's
electrical buzz

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought
could fix my father

she is a part of the blacktop now
the sun illuminates her umber hair
the grey strands bow toward the light--This strophe is where the poem starts to work for me.

I pause quickly--unneeded
will I be that beautiful when
the cool March breeze is the only
thing in this world
willing enough to touch my skin--these last few lines minus the first one are the most poetic part of the poem. This is a great payoff. It requires a build up that takes us here. 

I hope some of the comments helped. There's a lot that would need to be worked on before I could really go through the lines in greater detail. There are good moments though that you could develop.

Best,

Todd

[tectak]

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past) As a rule, it is wise not to excuse any work in Serious, even if in slanted fashion. Happy belated birthday...should I care?

1.
Sunday, 2:03pm, Say two-oh-three pm to avoid the reader saying three minutes past two in the afternoon...even subconsciously. I can tell you are going to use this time stamp as a device. It is not poetic.
my father breaks the shower faucet
for the third time this month Start right.Did he break the shower forcet for the third time? Did your mother, for the third time this month, drag her body upstair? Punctuate to clarity. Punctuation evolved for just this purpose. If you do not use it then one must assume you do not know how. Clue...comma
my mother drags her body up the stairs Clue..semicolon; unless she dragged her body up the stairs mental exhaustion. In which case you need an apostrophe on stair's. See, I distrust your intent already.
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets Impossible imagery. End of sentence, period

their vows ring in her ears Whose bloody vows? You do not say. Eye socket's vows? Capital letter on Their. You need to punctuate. No more on this.
he throws a wrench at her face
but its blocked it's. Oh do come along. I am minded to move this to Novice as I want be angry.
by my father's drunken aim

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot Wot? Is this the pet dog?
her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor Complete gobbledygook
Sorry. I cannot go on. This is posted in the wrong forum. Sorry about Spot the dog. Did he survive?
she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face,
panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges
imagine the firm handshake
my father once showed me

I lumbar over the threshold
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone

my father's crutch is my savior
he is too drunk to throw anything at my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights

the car lurches backward
a diagonal course
those marks will scar the grass
for years

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration
diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone
the officer's voice
mixes, so irritatingly
with the phone's
electrical buzz

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought
could fix my father

she is a part of the blacktop now
the sun illuminates her umber hair
the grey strands bow toward the light

I pause quickly
will I be that beautiful when
the cool March breeze is the only
thing in this world
willing enough to touch my skin

[Anne]

This poem would benefit by punctuation, clarification and compression.  I like the time stamps, if you were to change the title to something like “Sunday, My Senior year,” and then omit Sunday before the times.  And it would be ironic that all this violence occurs on the day of rest. I would omit the age in ()s and somehow allude to the speaker’s age in the piece.

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past)

2:03pm

My father’s (fist?) breaks the shower faucet (it is faulty, or does he hit it?)
for the third time this month (period)
my mother drags her body up the stairs
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets
How about some compression---
My mother’s body drags
up the stairs, her eye sockets dark
pits of mental exhaustion.

Their vows (of hatred? Or vengeance?) ring in my ears.
He throws a wrench at her face
(but it’s blocked
by my father's drunken aim) do you need all that in ()s?
or could you simply put, [b]”and misses.” ?[/b]


Sunday Senior Year

2:03pm

My father’s fist breaks the faucet
for the third time this month,
his curses echoing in the shower chamber.
My mother’s body drags
up the stairs, her eye sockets dark
pits of mental exhaustion,
their vows of hatred ringing
and ringing in our ears.
(maybe throw in a simile here or an “as if” statement.
He throws a wrench at her face,
blocked by her quick
instincts and reflexes.


This merely an example above of what you might do to help the poem along to its next draft.  The go through the entire piece this way, critically.  I like how you engage the reader and allow them to understand and enter the scene.

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot
her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor

she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face,
panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

Can you compress the above 3 stanzas?  Include the speaker in the room or outside the door, to solve the issue of how does the speaker know that unless he sees it?

In her bedroom, crossed-legged on the floor,
my sister sits within my view from the hallway
where I --------------fill in the blank----watch both scenes aghast (I don’t know, but tighten up the writing.), the contrast of----------it might be interesting to  contrast calm with violence.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges
imagine the firm handshake
my father once showed me

I lumbar over the threshold
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone

my father's crutch is my savior
he is too drunk to throw anything at my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered

Do you even need all the above in italics?  A wrench at someone’s face is probably enough to give the reader a sense of the degree of violence this man is capable of.  And much of the above is confusing, such as, how does the mother slam into the wall?  Does he hit her now, or shove her?   Finally I see what’s confusing me – so the father wasn’t actually taking a shower?  I thought he was in the beginning, but maybe he was fixing it from when it broke earlier???  See how you need to fix these quibbles somehow?  I could keep going through the entire piece but maybe if the beginning was clarified, things would change, so revise it and repost.

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream

Ok--- Moses was a good guy, so this analogy doesn’t work.

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights

So does the father leave alone, drunk?  That’s how I’m reading the above.

the car lurches backward
a diagonal course
those marks will scar the grass
for years

What about something like---
My father's hand shifts the blue
Subaru until it submits;
its backward lurching cuts a path
scarring the green lawn
like everything else his hands have touched (or come near).

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration
diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone
the officer's voice
mixes, so irritatingly
with the phone's
electrical buzz

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought
could fix my father

You might decide to shorten the poem and skip right to this---
She is a part of the blacktop now,
sun illuminating her umber hair,
grey strands bowing toward the light.

I pause (and ask myself) quickly (omit),
“Would I be that beautiful if(Will I be as beautiful as she is right now),
a cool March breeze was the only
thing in the world
allowed to touch my skin?”

I hope some of this is useful to you.  I think you have quite a poem here.  Keep revising and it’ll get there.

One more question---is the speaker male or female? If male, you might want to change "beautiful" to something like "attractive."

[Erthona]

Glad this has been moved to novice. Just some quick observations, although it appears as though the writer may never return. Still, I had fun.

Dale

______________________________________________________________
my mother's body slams

against a wall or a door, or lamp, or cow or 79' Vega
the thump is dead, yet although dead,
it mocks her (would that be the mother or the body)

I rip the bathroom door from its hinges (I am he-man)

imagine the firm handshake  (I'd rather not, you're the writer, you do it)
my father once showed me (Here child, let me demonstrate for you the firm hand shake that can rip a door off it's hinges!)

my mother and I part

as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea (So your dad is on a mission from God?)
he half tumbles down the stairs  (so what is the other half?)
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream (so he is dead?) whiskey is spelt wrong

the car lurches backward

a diagonal course  (for a car to move diagonally all four wheels would need to turn)
those marks will scar the grass (well no. It might scar the ground, but not the grass, grass grows new each year)
for years (and not for years, as the grass would quickly begin breaking up the soil and returning it to an even distribution)

Where to break this...hmmm!
my mother's vocal cords have seized her body (and)
hugs the memory of my father's driver's seat

That seems to make the most sense.

[scarlettehale]

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and help. I am very grateful. Some of you think I may have never returned, but I have written a new draft and will post it soon.
-SH

[Mark101]

Hi Scarlettehale,

I think this piece has a lot of merit. It's a very hard subject to deal with and sadly all to common these days, I think you did it quite well. On first looking at your piece, I thought Jeez, this is long, and nearly didn't bother to read, but actually once I started, you managed to keep my attention to the end, so it must have something I liked. I have to agree that it could benefit from punctuation, and from being condensed, because being so long, does tend to put people off, (I know from personal experience, having written a few pieces where folks have said the same to me lol)

Just a few things that stuck out to me-

Senior year (If only my 18th birthday was 14 years away rather than 2 months past)

1.
Sunday, 2:03pm,
my father breaks the shower faucet
for the third time this month
my mother drags her body up the stairs
mental exhaustion wears on her eye sockets ----- Not liking "wears on", maybe "shows in" could be better, otherwise a good opening stanza.

their vows ring in her ears
he throws a wrench at her face
but its blocked
by my father's drunken aim ---------- it can't really be blocked by the thrower, maybe "easily dodged"

Sunday, 2:05pm
my sister leaps on spot ---------I'm not understanding this ------ should it be "leaps on THE spot"? Or do you have a dog called Spot, and your sister just leapt on it?

her legs still crossed
on my bedroom floor

she is not met with an iron tool
but my stare -------------------------------Something missing here, maybe "but my steely stare"
of both embarrassment and pity

fear lazily strikes itself across her face, ---------I'm not sure that fear "strikes itself", lazily or otherwise, and probably not lazily either.

panic is barely noticeable,
the angry words and drunken slurs
were nothing less than habitual.

Sunday, 2:07pm
my mother's body slams
against a wall or a door
the thump is dead
it mocks her

Sunday, 2:11pm
I rip the bathroom door from its hinges
imagine the firm handshake
my father once showed me

I lumbar over the threshold -----------This lumbar refers to your back, should it be "lumber"?
stand toe to toe with Goliath
I am David
I have come with neither slingshot nor stone

my father's crutch is my savior
he is too drunk to throw anything at my face
but not drunk enough to be conquered

Sunday, 2:19pm
my mother and I part
as if he is Moses and we are the Red Sea
he half tumbles down the stairs
whisky becomes lead in the blood stream -----------Maybe "his" blood stream would be better?

Sunday, 2:37pm
the blue Subaru
shifts and submits under my father's hand
just as my mother has done so many nights

the car lurches backward
a diagonal course
those marks will scar the grass
for years

Sunday, 4:01pm
my mother's vocal cords have seized
her body hugs the memory
of my father's driver's seat --------I don't understand these 2 lines.

the warmth of the blacktop
a better husband
than my father could ever be



2.
Sunday, 4:57pm
my lips shift in tandem
with my vocal cord's vibration ----------personally, I never like to repeat things if I can help it, so "vocal cords" here, so close to the last use, jars a little for me.

diaphragm expands and contracts

I need to cringe at the drone -------cringe "as" the drone of the officer's voice mixes
the officer's voice
mixes, so irritatingly
with the phone's
electrical buzz

shallow breaths between
automated responses
supplies just enough oxygen
so I cannot forget tonight --------not really getting this, are we talking about a breathalizer?

Sunday, 5:28pm
I open the French door
the familiar sound of suction
seems less nostalgic tonight

my bare feet tango
around the missing deck boards
another project my mother thought
could fix my father ---------------------------love this analogy

she is a part of the blacktop now
the sun illuminates her umber hair
the grey strands bow toward the light

I pause quickly ----------------------can you pause quickly? Maybe you don't need "pause" at all.
will I be that beautiful when
the cool March breeze is the only
thing in this world
willing enough to touch my skin ---------------I don't think you need "enough", I think the thought is stronger without it.

I hope you don't mind too much my comments, they're only my thoughts on the piece. I'm sure others may disagree. As I said earlier, I do like it and I do think it has merit and will look forward to reading your revision.

best regards

Mark

[tectak]

I'd like to thank everyone for their comments and help. I am very grateful. Some of you think I may have never returned, but I have written a new draft and will post it soon.
-SH

Good egg,
tectak

[scarlettehale]

I have posted a second draft in Mild Critique. It is called Senior Year, Revision Two. Thank you again for the critique on this piece.
-SH