The Devils Right Outside

Hi, myjaspercat!

This poem was really really excellent! I truly loved it! And, although I like to write poetry, I normally don't like reading it. This was wonderful and I loved reading it!

I especially liked the quote at the beginning. The ending was predictable but not predictable enough to make me stop reading. I was still curious for more. You did a great job at captivating your reader. This is a great piece!

But, I do have a few nitpicks.

So, the rhyme scheme here (I could tell there clearly wasn't one) was sort of throwing me off because in the beginning it seemed like it wanted to rhyme but by the middle it wasn't. In the end, if this was a rhyming poem, instead of saying " ...; laughing, as she screamed." You could have said "...; laughing, as she cried." But, this clearly was not rhyming so it doesn't matter.

All I did was laugh, a cruel malicious laugh

A frieghtend little girl, so afraid to fall.

I don't think she truely knew that evil had already-
walked these halls.

Hi, @myjaspercat! I'm here to review! Let's take a look at your poem, shall we?

First of all, I love how you started with a quote. While a small detail it very much sets the tone for your poem (dark, grim, and very anxious and creepy). Already it makes me start to ponder on what your poem could possibly contain, what the "evils" will be, and what the overall meaning here is. And after reading your poem, the themes clearly go a bit deeper than that. Your themes seem to be about deception and good and bad and what the meanings of those two words really are. The way I would summarize all of your themes into sentences are shown below:

-Evil can hide even in the strangest of places, and in those we trust.
-Sometimes what is within us is stronger than what is outside of us(if you're looking for a positive spin on it)
-Be careful who you trust
-Those who will deceive you are everywhere...

And so many more themes that I can't pick up on (I'm sure). But you've provided a freaky poem that really twists and thrills and I love it.

The next thing I'm going to look at will be grammar/spelling. The first mistake I noticed was in this line:

"A frieghtend little girl, so afraid to fall."

Above, "freightend" should be "frightened".

"The devils outside my love- him and all his lies. Be

Above, "devils" should be "devil's" because you're using a contraction for "devil is". There should be a comma after "outside" because the character is addressing someone. The ending product of that line should look like this:

"The devil's outside, my love- him and all his lies. Be"

Okay? Okay! Onwards we go! I'm now going to go through this poem from beginning to end, those were just some mistakes that jumped out at me.

'Don't open that door!' She yelled.

For the rest of the poem, you use " instead of '. For consistency, change the quotation marks you have up there to the appropriate format. Also, your "She" should be "she"

The tips of my fingers hovered over,

The comma is not appropriate up above. It doesn't make sense. Get rid of it.

The tarnished silver knob.
Their nerves tingling and muscles aching-
To grasp the cold metal.

Usually, a period would make sense after the first line you have above, but since the thought isn't done use a semicolon, comma, or hyphen. Keep the sentence going. Also, the hyphen at the end of the second line above doesn't seem to be needed. I suggest taking it out.

(...) "Keep it shut" she panted, "Evil is on the other side."

Just make sure you have a comma after the word "shut" so the dialogue tag works.

All I did was laugh, a cruel malicious laugh
White-pearly razors lined my lips.
For who did she think she was -to tell me what to do

So, first line. In your first line you first use the word "laugh" as an action and then right after you use it as a noun...just referring to the verb. That doesn't make sense. If you remove the comma, however, he is simply laughing a cruel malicious laugh. I think that makes a little more sense.

Also, the end of that first line is odd. It would make sense otherwise but you continued the thought in a different sort of way that branch off from the original thought process. Because of that, I suggest adding a semicolon to the end of the first line, especially since the second line is not an independent clause.

The third line. The punctuation of this line made it really confusing to understand at first glance. I would say just add a question mark at the end and remove the hyphen for a more clear meaning. Also, that line needs to have an ending because a totally different line with a totally different thought comes after it. Since it is a question, I suggest a question mark. If you want to make it more shocked and angry use an exclamation mark.

"But dear, I'm hot in here," I moaned "-please just let

The greeting thing again. Also, this needs it to be fixed per the dialogue tags. You have the first bit right, but to make it fully correct you need to do this:

"But, dear, I'm hot in here," I moaned, "please just let

(I already critiqued the other parts, so I'm skipping ahead)

I don't think she truely knew that evil had already-
walked these halls.

"truely" should be "truly". And why is there a hyphen between already and walked? It just confuses things.

And shed my human skin; laughing, as she screamed.

No semicolon needed. Change that semicolon to a comma. Also, why does he need to go outside? He clearly wants the door to be opened, so there's probably something important outside. But could you maybe explain that more?

You have a really good poem here; I'm so sorry if this seemed harsh. I loved your description, and aside from the punctuation and spelling mistakes everything was great. Happy writing!

Hey, jasper!


This poem is wow. Usually, I am a heavy sucker for romance but this was astonishing. Glad I checked out this work of art. First, the structure is typical, evenly split for a nice casual read. Not too lengthy but almost like a short story read with a more enjoyable flow. I love how the perspective changes from the woman and the man who is actually the devil. The build up is perfect, slowly leading to the reveal while concluding the piece which is beautiful. The level of diction is beyond appropriate. I typically have constructive criticism to give but this is phenomenal.

Your friend,

Cheaper

I'm so speechless that even typing something feels wrong. (Hey, there! hahaha, I had to get that out of the way before I even thought about properly saying hi.)
I mean, it's perfect. I like the way it is narrated, I like the emotions you're showing, the characters' interaction (God! You had me hooked hard with that), and the context of it all.

Differentiation between two characters, for me, is the clue to any successful piece of writing, and you literally stroke the hammer directly on the nail. I'd like to say that the guy creeps me out, and yet I find his cynical behavior amusing and intriguing. I just love it! (For someone who's got no talent in poetry whatsoever, I was fairly interested.)

Great job! <3