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125,003 Literary Works • 672,791 Reviews
She smiles,
and she chuckles,
at everyone more than me.
And it's my duty,
to feign apathy. (This right here just screams combo breaker. It's a great line in and of itself, but it doesn't fit with rhythm. You need a few more syllables. Maybe try "To feign some form of apathy." That would put the rhythm back into the poem.)
It's my duty,
to forgive and forget.
It's my duty,
not as a friend,
but for pride of self. (Whoa there tiger. The first stanza was great and set you up for a lyrical, controlled format. I think his could easily be fixed by throwing some form of rhyme into this stanza. It won't return the lyricism, but it will keep the poem more constant. If you're going to rhyme one stanza, it's best to rhyme them all.)
But that's a blatant lie.
I hate her.
I care for her.
I can imagine life without her;
those are the constituents of my nightmares. (Little too long here with this last line, but not horrible. I rather like it. I feel like you said "her" too much, and while I realize that this is a literary tool, I think that it would work best if you revised the last line to be a little more.....flowing. I love the line in and of itself, but again it doesn't fit entirely. I fully recognize this as one of those "Hey look! This line looks poetic and awesome!" cause I do that too....All the time. The catch to poeticism however is ability to make it fit into the stanza. I would suggest playing with this line until you can get it to be a little shorter, and maybe rhyme with "her."
So I suppose I have a duty,
A reputation to uphold.
I'll wear my mask a little longer,
For her sake; Always.
Never my own. (This is good too but I wish that "Uphold" and "Own" were a little closer.)
You have a very good poem here and it makes a wonderful image with fantastic narration, but your main problem here is rhythm. It seems as though you've used 3-4 different styles of writing in just this one poem. My suggestion would be to take this as a skeleton and massage it until you get all of the stanzas into the same format or at least the same writing style. I think you can do it! Goodluck!