Poem for my English class: Thoughts?
 

So my English teacher decided to talk to me as if I don't know how to write or even understand poetry. We have to write a poem for a project I do not agree with.
Naturally I decided to try to make the most serious poem to hurt my soul so please tell me how to edit this. I do have a length limit, and I have already gone over it but I feel like I want to elaborate on some things but like, I don't have the length to do that (the limit is 20 lines and mine is currently 33).

Here it is :

Oh! But my tears are laced with the
salt of a night alone, yet my laughter
is ringing like a church bell on a
Sunday morning.

Beauty! That is what you are calling it.
Beauty!

Allow my words to wrap around your
cold unfeeling heart and halt the beating,
just long enough for you to panic,
such as I on a
Sunday night.

Because twinkle twinkle on that
little star, I will wonder what I am
as your kind forces leather-bound
death certificates down my throat
while I am too small to
swallow.

My future! That is what I am working for.
My future!

But what bloody hell good is a future
when that is the last thing I want?
Can no one see from the train tracks
that run up wrist and across my hips that
all I wish is to
escape?

A girl who has never known her mother's
side cowers in the corner as she is
beaten for a mistake she is unaware of.
A boy, without a chance in the world
of escaping his father's drunken
rampages.

Society! That is what is torturing us.
Society!

Re: Poem for my English class: Thoughts?
 

Firstly, I like it :) Is the length requirement very fixed?

Ok, so pretty much need to chop two stanzas out entirely and then fiddle a little. Just as a quick go, I think it would stand alone without the last two stanzas (which are the more personal ones?)

So:
Oh! But my tears are laced with the
salt of a night alone, yet my laughter
is ringing like a church bell on a
Sunday morning.

Beauty! That is what you are calling it.
Beauty!

Allow my words to wrap around your
cold unfeeling heart and halt the beating,
just long enough for you to panic,
such as I on a
Sunday night.

Because twinkle twinkle on that
little star, I will wonder what I am
as your kind forces leather-bound
death certificates down my throat
while I am too small to
swallow.

My future! That is what I am working for.
My end!

Re: Poem for my English class: Thoughts?
 

Re: Poem for my English class: Thoughts?