All Comments on 'Shade'

the first 2 lines can and often will determine if someone continues to read or back clicks. Here is an example...the first 2 lines of this poem, you have made a mistake with your tenses that if corrected, would make your poem better.

*There are a million shadows that live in my eyes,

They told me their stories and they cleared the skies.*

You say the shadows live in your eyes, then you say they told you stories and cleared skies....

think about using active verbs, because you use an active verb, *live*, in the first line, so continue that.

There are a million shadows that live in my eyes,

They tell me their stories and they clear the skies.

active verbs seem to draw your reader in more so than past tense. I read an article where a study was done of "favorite" poems and the ones selected had a ratio of more active verbs to adjectives, gerunds or adverbs, It just makes sense. I did not back click because your work interests me, but you do have room for improvement.

Also, using different tenses like you have done just isn't good practice. I do not make a habit of rewriting people's work because someone did that to me once when all I asked for was an edit and it totally ruined the poem for me, in fact, I deleted it and never worked on it again, so beware of people that do that, it isn't professional, it isn't kind nor fair.

Keep up the good work, the practice. I look forward to reading you in the future and what your mind will bring :)

~ maria

On a subsequent read, I realized that what you did is perfectly fine taken in context with the rest of the poem. Next time I will invest a few more reads before I make a comment like that. Usually that advice would be okay, but you did fine :) Again I apologize.

~ maria

Not wanting to be mean, I advise you to work at this, rather than slapping down the first rhyme that apparently comes into your head.

Sweet O.