Two Sides of the Road

Two arms
crossed over
holding
Two textbooks
guarding
shielding
One cleavage
hiding...

Two men
standing
smoking
Two cigarettes
staring
watching
One girl
waiting...

Two arms
fighting
failing.

Hello Cheesy I'm LastPaladin and I shall review this piece, I'll first say I was glad chose to read this as it suprised me, but unfortunately, I feel you didn't write this the right way --- that isn't to say there a wrong way in this case, it's to say that in this case you chose wrong style. I shall try explain what I mean here.

Okay first thing you establish it is well done, but what you don't establish is the fear, the nervousness, the terror, you don't use strong enough word choice essentially. You want it to be quick but also fearful and as of now it's only fast, but no real terror, instead you feel instead a normal scene being described, which is if I understand correctly the exact opposite of what you desire.

You really need stronger word choice here to absolutely convey the terror, the fear, the nervousness and worry. But you must choose words that sound fast, sound fearful, so nothing too fancy, really go into it. Imagine how you'd feel before it happened, imagine how it feel to be subjected to a game like this, a frightening game of cat and mouse.

You've given us no reason to fear the men, for all i know they could be just layabouts, nothing strikes me as dangerous, I know plenty of sound people who smoke, this is why telling doesn't always work. And this is why this falls apart you tell us everything but never really show. If you want this be strong you must capture the girl feelings perfectly and let the readers feel them.

And the end, feels incomplete, it feels rushed and very forced, you can surely make that bit more horrifying?

Overall, this has potential, but you do too little for me to accurately see this picture and in the end the men don't seem threatening, they seem like average joes, not exactly the image you want huh? So word choice, show don't tell, and of course make the men more dangerous sounding.

Hope this helps

I agree with everything LastPaladin has said.

It feels like an unfinished poem. You present the 2 sides of the road, but nothing else. That leads to a very confusing third stanza, where I'm not sure who's fighting who, or why exactly they are fighting.

Don't get me wrong; I love the way you presented this. One or two words per line, along with the parallel structure of the first 2 stanzas makes this really go fast and read well. It's the perfect way to write something like this - the tension of being strung along for what seems like a long time (the length of each stanza), but in reality it's moving so quick your mind can barely keep up (the length of each line). This is how fights are, and you have captured it perfectly through your structure.

But you fail at the actual plot element of the poem. You have 2 great stanzas, setting up a variety of possible scenarios that this poem can go, yet you don't give the reader enough to go on to figure out which road you actually took. And after reading 2 stanzas that were 8 lines long, reading that third stanza with 3 lines didn't feel right. It felt like there should have been more to that stanza, even if it was just nonsensical words thrown together.

You have a good basic poem right here; just finish it and you'll have a great poem.

Two arms
crossed over
holding
Two textbooks
guarding
shielding
One cleavage
hiding...

Two men
standing
smoking
Two cigarettes
staring
watching
One girl
waiting...
insert somthing here to make clearer the fighter

Two arms
fighting
failing Oh my goodness, this is beautiful. Love,love,love.
.

I think you could have inserted a stanza between the 2nd and the 3rd explaining the beginning of confrontation or her heightened fear. This is Beautiful, truly. Good job.