TheForgotten

There are some large gaps in your story that need 'filling':

The slightly 'jokey' opening to your threatening letter is inappropriate if you are tying to build tension. It just doesn't work! You cannot do both and expect your readers to follow you into whatever dark place you want to take them.

Secondly, Taz's almost-immediate acceptance of the letter is hard to swallow. Where is her shock? Her distress? Her anger? Her disbelief? At what point does she dismiss the letter as a sick joke, as some sort of wind-up, for instance?

In order for your narrative to be interesting it needs to be believable. The best way to achieve that is to imagine YOURSELF in the situation you are describing: how would YOU react to that letter if you were Taz? Would you scream, cry, tear the letter into tiny pieces? Would you throw-up, smash something, tear around the house screaming your head-off, call your parents/the police/your best friend? Any one of these scenarios is far more likely than what you have described.

I cannot imagine a Dustin happily being told to pack and come to someone house without some sort of justification. I can, though, imagine Dustin responding to a tearful phone-call and being shown the letter THEN going home to pack etc...

Expediency in writing is a tool that needs careful handling to make it effective. Jumping from one scene to another without some sort of logical progression is a dangerous game to play as it leaves huge holes in your plot. This is what has happened here.

As a first draft of your story, this is okay. You now need to revisit it to see where you can make changes and improvements to streamline it and make it flow more logically and more smoothly. You have the skills to do so. You now need to learn the patience...

Second Review:

This is MUCH better! It flows better, makes far more sense and has that missing sense of tension I was looking for. There is also a logical progression from one scene to the next. Well done and congratulations for having the maturity and confidence to take on-board my feedback and advice. :-)

Does heartache make one a monster? In that case the world is only populated by monsters, which is a bit ... untrue.

I sort-of get where you're coming from with this one, but the leap from heartbreak to 'monster' isn't really explained or clear, which is a shame. However, another good offering :-)

One of the Golden Rules of writing poetry is that if you have to 'force' a rhyme, then it's not going to work. there are one or two examples in this poem whereby that yardstick is clearly in evidence. Which is a pity, as the poem - overall - is quite good.

Please also remember to NOT use slang or colloquialisms in your work. YOU might know what you mean, but others may not, especially international (or non-English speaking) readers.

Nice poem

Reminded me of certain aspects of The Giver and a few other Young Adult novels with dystopian settings that I've read. Written competently, though it seemed just a bit rushed in the second half. Fleshing out the mythos of the world in which Claire exists would further increase the reader's immersion. Not sure if this is what you were going for, but it felt like a teaser for a general concept, rather than a first entry in a series.
I'd like to see a continuation and even a series, if you avoid the cliches of this specific genre. As I said, it has a feel reminiscent of The Giver, but also The Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix, and the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness as well.

Interested in seeing where you take the story.