my dad absence

With out your love came
sorrow and pain.
With out your absence
came tear-stained pillows.
With out your comfort
came sleepless nights.
With out your reassurance
came sickness and fright.
With out your security
came fear and nightmares.
With out your encouragement
came sadness
With out your bravery
came bitterness and terror.
Without your honesty
came lies harsh and cruel.
Without your absence
came never-ending torments.
With out your time
my loneliness has been
sometimes unbearable.

A contest entry

Fatherless Day by lively banter. 500 points, ended June 18, 2008, 15 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest

Comments

By me, right now

Adding your comment:
apples fell
June 16, 2008

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I don't think you expanded much at all, really. I remember slightly that some of these images were here before. But it's hard since I don't have my older comment to go off. What I will say is that there are a few moments where the poem seems to get off it's tracks...and that's really where the poem shines through. My main problem is that you repeat your feelings in the same pattern throughout the poem. Making each line predictable. And yes, bring that first without together. I mean you could leave it as two words if you wanted to be creative but that wouldn't change that it's spelled wrong on most accounts. I know that the father subject is a hard one to write about, sometimes. In the end I think there are some things you could have done without odd repetitions and unbearably over spoken images. Some more simple unique word changes would have helped. The only one I semi-liked was "tear-stained", but even that is a stretch for complete like to me. Thank you though for trying to strengthen the vocabulary. If I remember correctly the first was weaker. I would love to compare my comment, but it is gone. And thus I am at a lose to give you feedback on what you might have changed for the better. Thanks for entering our contest. Please do not change anything at this time, the contest is being judged as of now.

;
lively banter
June 15, 2008

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Okay, so I liked how you tried to expand this a little bit more. There’s some cool lines in it like “tear stained pillows.” I just think you went overkill with the compare/contrast idea. Reading ‘without’ in every other line put me to sleep. It’s really funny how you spelled without two different ways in here. The first part you spelled it as two words then it’s one word. The last bit actually spelled correctly, without is one word, not two. Also the title has a typo; it should be “my dad’s absence.” Oh, and the second without line makes no sense. If you are without one’s absence that would mean the person is still with you, so why would you be sad? Unless you don’t like your father, but the poem doesn’t read like that. Do you mean the word presence instead? Since you removed your original version with our comments, it’s hard to say anything more of how you could improve this; I forget what I said about the first version. I think I might have said something about the first version kept repeating itself and could be like two lines long? I’d like to see you not rely on all of the withouts to tell your story though. I do appreciate your effort.