Dreamscape or time travel
Which calls my name in the dead of the night
Oh how I feel my dreams may be more thrilling than traveling back
Into the time in which I was myself
Not this bitter, cold hearted, evil bitch
They all seem to distance themselves from
Maybe if they could just see through my eyes
The pain and betrayal in which I have witnessed
They would understand how traveling back
Would do more harm than good
I like this one a lot.
Suggestions for improvement:
1. eliminating some of the subordinating words can improve the rhythm of your lines and create more poetic language — imagery and figurative language. For instance this line: “Which calls my name in the dead of the night” without the “which” would create personification where “Deamscape or time travel
calls my name in the dead of night”
Words like “which” or “in which” weaken your lines and are rarely needed.
2. You can also prune some words from the following lines to make them stronger, less tentative — and more poetic, a different rhythm:
• “Oh how I feel my dreams may be more thrilling than traveling back” (omit “may be”?). Taking out “Oh how” may improve the rhythm but it also removes the emotional sigh, so to speak. Can you think of another way to breathe this breath? A different word or phrase? A punctuation mark? Spacing? Line break? Just a thought.
Other ways to giving more life and rhythm to this poem:
• Omitting passive verbs like “seem to”
• Avoiding participles (“would understand” and “could just see” and “have witnessed” and “would do”) by using more active present/past tense verbs (understand and see and witnessed and does).