I laughed, I cried. nice job.

"Self reliance is the way we're told" is poor wording. The repetition of "All the while" is more irritating than interesting. I would recommend not capitalizing the random religiousish words. "Murmer" should be "murmur." More importantly, I find this a supreme overstatement, a single idea refashioned about 30 minimally-different ways. I'd be interested in seeing how you would express the same idea in maybe 8 lines. Or how you'd fit more ideas into this (or a smaller) space. Take a look here for an idea of how that's done: http://www.poemranker.com/user-browse.jsp?id=2640

I think the middle part should be reworked as: "but instead sliced it clean off, a [metaphor here maybe]. I still remember etc etc." Maybe play around some with the line length in the first part, some richa enjambment. I don't know how, exactly. At any rate I'd lose the dash, ellipses, and unnecessary I.

why didn't you just add a new poem instead of blowing this one away?

Should first line be "thousands of tears?" Should second line omit the extra spaces? Should third line be "sorrow?" The list goes on!

Cute, but rhymes are forced.

Yes you love her, we got that right away, and many of the many ways are repeated in other ways as we go through this long poem. Still some lines are good:

I knew this old East German raver Who'd do me sometimes for a favor Man, she was so hirsute That to locate her chute Took an hour with an electric shaver

Im really surprised you didn't take this farther into poetic (shall I say 'guff' in honor of a poem above and a comment on Daveslady's poem) comparatives. Still the image is very smelly red.

I'd gove you 10 if you'd said 9.

The last line is such a disappointment. This is me reversing my usual advice to p/r posters: you should cut the last line and then add about 8 more about something or other. And "rising hope" bugs me.

No, sorry, it doesn't follow.

Zodiac, how can I trust your votes anymore? Too much is overwritten here, too many spelling and grammar faults. Some nice thoughts, but "my heart throbs?"

If truth is a measure of a good poem, then, by all means, this is a ten.

Passionate.

what word could i use on the "soon to turn green" instead of the word "green"

Not a bad poem, but I think that you need to incest in Microsoft Word simply for the spell-checker. I've found that it helps!

Although I'm not a big fan of rhyme like this, I liked some of the imagery, in particular "My ceiling holds secrets concealed..."

concise and beautiful

I liked the imagery but I got a little mixed and turned around while reading this. However, I think if you cleaned it up some, it would take away from the poem instead of adding to it. I think it's one of those that I have to keep reading several times over.