What you've done to me

The Bile in my stomach rises, settels, and burns in the back of my throat. My muscles clench and tighten in fear, ready to defend. Just your face sets the alarms blaring in my mind. I see you approach and I know it's a fight or flight situation, and I'm prepared to fight. My heart races as my mind flashes images of things that happened, my stance falters and I flee.
All I'm left with are these painful memories of what you did to me

Okay, forgetmeknot, first I'd like to say nice name - very creative!
So this is your first attempt at poetry, eh? I'm impressed - there is some real potential here.

I'd like to point out a few things to you, and as you are a beginner, I want to say that you did do a very nice job. But there are some tips I'd like to share with you.

Between some of your lines, for effect, you may want to make new paragraphs. Poetry is about grace in speech, and from the time an author writes a poem, to the time the audience reads it, some things can get confused, as to what is said when and how. The best way to correct this is to use punctuation and spacing. In some cases, narrative poetry is nice, but for "What you've done to me", I'd say that some spacing would be helpful to convey the way you heard it as the author. For example,

The Bile in my stomach rises, settels, and burns in the back of my throat

I personally would write it this way :
This bile in my stomach
rises
settles
burns
in the back
of my throat.

Did you notice how differently it reads? There are assumed pauses here and there, adds drama and feeling. That's just my opinion, doesnt make it right.

Also, some rhythm would make it easier as well. That's not something thats easy to find, either. It just kind of comes to you. The way words sound together makes a difference as well.

Imagery has a big, huge role in a poem too. The picture a poem paints in the readers mind is HUGE. Makes or breaks it, y'know? Like "knobby crooked hands sprouted from their places in the ground, dark and skinny, grabbing at some upward source of prey." sounds much more descriptive than "the trees were scary", doesn't it?

Just some thoughts for you. Keep it up, forgetmeknot. You're doing great.
PM me for any thing you may need.

Best regards -
IamHathor22

Soooo you have a lot of potential as a writer . This is not a bad piece of work you've got here, but I would suggest you play around with the format a bit. If this was my poem, I'd set it us something like this:

The Bile in my stomach rises,
settels, and burns in the back of my throat.
My muscles clench and tighten in fear, ready to defend.
Just your face sets the alarms blaring in my mind.
I see you approach and I know it's a fight or flight situation,
and I'm prepared to fight.
My heart races as my mind flashes images of things that happened,
my stance falters and I flee.
All I'm left with are these painful memories
of what you did to me

Now, I'm going to use that format in my next bit of critique to make it a bit easier, not because you absolutely have to do it that way (though it is my suggestion that you do).

The Bile in my stomach rises, Bile doesn't need to be capitalized, but I do like the imagery here
settels, and burns in the back of my throat. It's *settles* Not a bit deal .
My muscles clench and tighten in fear, ready to defend. It's just my personal opinion that "and" here makes the poem flow less, if it were me, I'd omit the "and" and just put a comma.
Just your face sets the alarms blaring in my mind. I like this line .
I see you approach and I know it's a fight or flight situation, Again, just the way I'd arrange it, but I think this would flow better as "And I know it's fight or flight." But that's just personal opinion.
and I'm prepared to fight. Love it ,
My heart races as my mind flashes images of things that happened, I'm not entirely sure how this could be fixed, but "things that happened" just seems so....forced. Can you broaden this? Explain it a bit more? Or maybe just write "images of my past?" It alters the serious tone of the poem the way it is now.
my stance falters and I flee.
All I'm left with are these painful memories
of what you did to meI love it , but don't forget the period!

Good job over all, I hope you keep writing .