I've never grinned that much at the end of a flash fic; not til this entry. The voice is perfect and your pacing is just as flawless. To be frank, I have little to add to this. Great entry, and fantastic use of the prompt.
Oh my. This poem certainly paints this person in a dim light -- but what great fodder she makes for your poem!
There's a lot of raw nerve and emotion in here. I really like how you maintain the /ai/ phoneme throughout, it develops a predictable cadence that moves the poem forward.
That being said, I find the cliches a bit distracting from your hard work in putting pen to paper. A "nightmare in disguise" depiction of a person is what I'd call a "dead horse" trope. It's used a lot, and leaves a stale taste in the mouth. What makes her a "nightmare in disguise"? How can you use your poetic skills to build a representation of this?
A lot of times, a poem should be structured, at least emotionally, like a story. You should start with the active emotion, building to a climax, then resolving with catharsis -- theoretically, and this is just one mode of poetry. So let's look at the where the active emotion starts in your poem.
"She'll be back to bleed you dry"
Fantastic! Here's what you accomplished in this line:
1) Establishing character
2) Action!
3) Very negative emotion.
This sets me up for a harrowing poem: a blood-draining damsel at her worst!
So think about starting there next time, then building to a climax, then resolving. It's a surefire way to get your point across.
You know when a poem or other work leaves you warm? As if you were mere inches from the hearth, soaking up every degree of flame. That's what you're capable of producing -- and that's what you succeeded in creating with this poem.
The structure is rather unorthodox, but it works. You seem to highlight each line as an individual thought, which is nothing new, but you continue to layer image after image. That's the difference. The rhythm is loose, the phrases are loose, but there's a tightness to it which feels too tense for a poem on love.
But don't take that to heart -- your imagery is superior. And your alliteration helps with the loose rhythm. Great work here.
Poetic prose. It was pretty dense to slog through, mainly because I'm a little sleepy, but it was heavy in an abstract way that seemed to overshadow any action. It wasn't until you got to the gun that I really started paying a lot of attention. Here's why.
Obviously, the girl is playing Russian roulette or is a piss-poor murderer. Once I saw that was going on, I wanted to pay attention. Who was this girl? What is she doing? Why? Who did this to her -- brought her to this? Unfortunately, most of this wasn't answered by the story. What you did manage to do is make me hungry -- I wanna know who she is. Can you tell her story? Can you make her come to life? I challenge you and encourage you to do so.
You've got a way with words. Your diction palette is dense with deep reds, blacks, blues -- but I wonder if they are appropriate for the story?
Your diction is one thing -- you're describing terror beyond imagination -- but the way you parse your sentences sounds more like a poet than, say, a Captain in the Allies. I know what you were going for here -- I think you attacked it at the right angle, but with the wrong kind of force. Think about it like this -- would a Captain have the time to write this kind of journal? Especially as the piece moved on -- would he have described the deaths as "Then the wind picks up from the west and blows them up to heaven, leaving the living in the bitterness of victory, in this sweet hell we call war" ? This is poetry, but it's a bit misplaced.
Fantastic concept. Consider reading up on WWII journals. Heck, even Elie Wiesel's "Night" would be a good source to go off of. I think you have a lot of potential here.
Woah. I was not expecting that at all. Nice twist/reveal.
What had me really hopeful in the beginning was all the suspense you built. At first, I wondered where the action was -- where the dialogue was. But I kept reading. There was something about your style which facilitated a need for me to read on. And I'm glad I did.
There are a few conventions errors that are a bit distracting. The whole animal thing was awesome -- but I feel like the tabby cat portion needs to be spruced up. It's a lot at once. It kind of works against my willing suspension of disbelief.
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