Well Spoken, firstly let me congratulate you on winning this contest, it was definitely the most unique poem entered and a great piece on the whole.

"Take a step by and survey the damage.
Watch the breath flow out of this body.
Its the end of this book, the passage was written.
Corpse grows cold, and skin turns blue.
Life is stolen, never to be returned again. "

The first stanza instantly grabbed my attention almost instantly as I realised that this was going to be a dark poem! The line that caught my attention the most in this stanza was,

" Watch the breath flow out of this body. "

I liked it in particular because it gave an extremely vivid picture of the inhumane act occuring. Also I felt that it matched the requests of the contest completely. Brilliant.

"You look back and think of what you've done.
You think of the repetitive beating of a corpse
like the story of "The Tell Tale Heart."
Murder is something you thought you would never commit.
But now you hear voices of the one that was lost."

This stanza, I think, sets the platform for the rest of your poem and thus is effective. Remorse. Extremely powerful to every person because everyone has experienced it to a certain extent. So therefore, good job on relating to the reader. I also felt that, indirectly, you were saying, 'we are all capable of this crime.' I liked it.

"As you lie away at night you hear voices.
Whispering "Do you breathe me?"...
You look around yet no one is there.
So you close your eyes once more,
"Because I breathe you"... You hear it once again.
You scan your room once again, but there you are isolated."

Here I feel as if you have turned the remorse into a haunting guilt. Brilliant idea! It is extremely dark and supernatural and the reader definitely feels the chills in your words.

"You want to repent for the sin you have violated,
So you wish, you wish as hard as you can.
You smile as you go to bed, hoping the voice is gone.
But you hear it in the distance, so faint you can barely hear it.
"I'm still here."...
Voice gets louder, close to your ear, "Did you think you could be rid of what you've done?"...
You run out covering your ears, you don't want to hear it again.
But the next thing you know you see head lights.
And as you lie to your death you hear it for the last night.
"I told you I would breathe you"... "

The last stanza in your poem was definitely the one that impacted me the most! Your character not only appears to be on the verge of insanity but dies in the end AND the killer is the killed!!! Brilliant! The reader is left feeling somewhat satisfied and yet somewhat scared!!

Overall, I felt the poem lacked some structure which would have made it more inviting as a read. I also thought you could have made it darker, not by changing the storyline (that was amazing) but by using darker discriptions. Nonetheless, a great piece that excelled above all others!

Congrats again,

Natalie M. Sarantos