Welcome to WDC! I saw your listing in "Please Review"  and thought that I might as well give it a read.

Some things I Like:

You have some really effective word choice in this piece. In particular, the "unsettledness" is a genius use of a non-word. Clearly, there is no such word as 'unsettledness', but the sound and awkwardness of the word creates an uneasy feeling in the reader. It just isn't quite right. How fitting!

The ending is pretty strong. It has some resonance. I don't think that people will instantly forget the poem when they finish reading it.

Observations & Suggestions:

The piece could use a grammar edit in general. Not everyone is comfortable with grammar, but it is still importance. I wont edit the entire piece, but this is one area that really stood out to me. The final line should be solid:

"couldn't ease my mind completely" has a dangling modifier. "completely" modifies "ease" not "mind"... so it needs to be beside "ease". An easy rule: If your sentence ends with an adverb (commonly an -ly word), the adverb is in the wrong place. Pretty much always true.

There is a bit too much passive voice in this poem for my taste. "I was forced" "I was forced" "I was torn" ... just the three drove me a bit nuts. Rather than "I was forced", try changing the subject of the sentence.

"I was forced" vs. "Something forced me"
"I was torn" vs. "Something tore me from"

Since I'm already on this line, I might mention too that "as I was torn out of an uneasy" is a really bulky sentence. Changing the passive voice to active would help, but just the simple change from "out of" (a double preposition) to "from" would do wonders. This type of smoothing could improve readability for the entire poem.

This same "as I was torn..." line is a good example of another issue. The flow is awkward here. You fell into a nice, easy rhythm with the first three lines, and disrupted it here. I would suggest setting the poem aside for a month or two and then reading it aloud. Any time you stumble in your reading, tweak it.

The opening line could be very strong, but it isn't much of a hook. "It was a good feeling" sounds... well... a little full I suppose. What is that good feeling? You generated feelings in the reader in other areas of the poem, why not here too? I might consider changing "good feeling" to something specific that might make the reader feel it along with you.

Overall, this piece has some very nice moment. It has many areas for improvement as well. It could use some polish, but it will be well worth the effort! It shows real promise, and you clearly have poetic skill. It just isn't quite there yet.





My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .