As She Wakes

I woke up
in the dark.
I always wake up in the dark.
This morning, however,
was different.
I’d had
a dream that was
Quite rudely interrupted
By my alarm clock before my arm
Whipped out and shut the damn thing
Off.
Silence.
My eyes stay open in the dark.
My brain feels full of sand.
I can’t handle it.
Not another day
Especially if I could lie
In the darkness
Forever,
Just stay
In my warm bed
And I won’t have to face today
But I can’t close my eyes
And let the darkness take over
I can’t miss school
I have two quizzes
And I’ll have to make up homework
And
And
I’m weak and
And
6:09, I’ve slept in.
Wearily, I slide out of bed, and step out
Into the light.

The first thing I noticed straight-off: the capitalization of your lines is inconsistent. Sometimes you capitalize; sometimes you don't. How you present your poem has a considerable impact on how it is received, and little things like inconsistent line capitalization can really detract from your poem since the immediate impression it gives your reader is "unpolished, quite probably not proofread".

The next thing I noticed was your line breaks and punctuation.

This morning, however,
was different.
I’d had
a dream that was
Quite rudely interrupted

These lines in particular stood out to me as badly enjambed, with the first line quoted having too many commas. Keep in mind that the end of every line results in a slight pause as your readers' eyes travel down and across to the start of the next line. While this pause isn't as long as a comma's, it's still there, and having a badly placed line break pause really kills your flow. Combined with how short the lines are, and you've created a very jerky feeling for your reader as they read along.

Going back to the commas, generally, the shorter your lines, the fewer pieces of punctuation you want to have per line. In this case, the commas around "however" are not absolutely necessary, and having both of them makes "however" stand out like a huge, sore thumb.

One possible revision:

This morning
however
was different.
I’d had a
dream that was quite rudely
interrupted

Play around with the line breaks. Every time you do, read your poem aloud to yourself and see if it feels right, that the pace of how you say the words feels natural, not awkward. Reading your poems aloud, or having someone read them to you, is the easiest way to spot issues with flow.

Overall, enjambment, punctuation, and inconsistent line capitalization aside, this was a nice, simple poem. I like how you handled the subject, though I think the "and" after "I'm weak and" is a bit overkill. The first iterations were quite effective, though.

Okeydokey...down to work.

So, I definitely agree with Kyllorac about the line breaks. Too much. If I were you (which I'm not) I would simply eliminate about half of your line breaks. So instead of

I woke up
in the dark.
I always wake up in the dark.
This morning, however,
was different.

It might look more like

I woke up in the dark.
I always wake up in the dark.
This morning, however,
was different.

And so on and so forth...and then there's this sort of thing, which feels weird:

By my alarm clock before my arm
Whipped out and shut the damn thing
Off.

I get the intention here, but It's a little muddled for me, I guess, and it bothers me more than it helps me understand the meaning of your poem (the spacing, that is). So if you're attached to it that way, by all means, keep it, but for me personally it didn't add to your purpose in this instance.

My brain feels full of sand.

Love this!

Not another day
Especially if I could lie
In the darkness
Forever,
Just stay
In my warm bed
And I won’t have to face today

Personally, it bothers me that you have the word "day" so close to it. When you say "Not another day...And I won't have to face today", it leaves me wanting more varied word choice. Also, grammar wise, in the second line of that chunk you are using conditional "If I could" but then you way "And I won't", which really, if you're being consistent, should be "And I wouldn't" (hope that's not too confusing).

And I’ll have to make up homework
And
And
I’m weak and
And
6:09, I’ve slept in.
Wearily, I slide out of bed, and step out
Into the light.

In this case, I really like the use of line separations between the "And"-s. It gives the reader the impression of the tone of voice that you would be using. I like your ending, a nice closing.

Overall, I love the content and the way you've written this poem. For me, the only thing that detracts is the spacing, which is pretty easy to fix.

Nice work!

Sarebear