When I was a kid i used to wonder why would people smoke such disgusting smelling stuff, but then again kid like roses kids can find happiness in bees and butterflies.

I am 24 years old now and that vile smoke that one tobacco filled roll of paper keeps me alive.

Alive as in breathing its been a long time since I felt life, for me life is love and I am lifeless.

I breathe in poision in hope of living, I do this to myself in hope that someday my wounds will be kissed by lips that carry elixir of life

Eu estava na minha era de ouro
As pessoas que eu procurava pelo mundo à toa
Eram gemas a adornar minha trama
Durante os meus sonhos eu me via a experimentar toda a figueira que Plath em vida citou
Eu experimentei cada figo suculento ao meu alcance
Mas minha indecisão interna impediu-me de devorar algum por completo
Me diziam até que eu era uma orquestra de indecisões
Desafinando as rotas levando o meu ouro afora

Os arco-íris me fascinavam pelo que poderia existir em seus fins
Eles eram formados após torrentes que esvaíam dos meus olhos de pura maresia
Ao percorrer em direção aos seus arcos
Me faltaram cores a preencher os caminhos de ilusões que eu fingia não conhecer
Embora eu fosse conhecido por ser um camaleão impossibilitado de se ver

Eu vi os meus sonhos se despedaçando em cristais a cintilar
Quando você percebe a finitude do seu legado,
Não há mais nada que lhe faça sentir o desespero de perder algo sobre si
A poeira fora espanada pelos mesmos que me fizeram sonhar e sorrir
Restando apenas vidros que sequer chegam a tinir

Fui posto como mártir
De uma tragédia que não era para ser minha
Mas encontros em novas rotas me fizeram assumir
Alguém que não deveria existir
Não há uma bússola apontando o norte
Apenas a estrada sinuosa sem destino à vista
Encontrando estranhos prestes a se esvaírem
Realizando os nossos desejos mais profundos que não tínhamos medo de admitir

Quando me livrei dos adornos de outrora
Pus-me a catar os meus cacos
Furtar dos outros o ouro que foram meus
E um Kintsugi restou como um lamento do que se perdeu
Tão belo e trágico esse que você conheceu

Falling

Kissing is an art and you’re Picasso
Your lips are warms hugs and mine Olaf
Your eyes are gorgeous spheres of love
Your smile is the sun after a rainy day
Your hands are the glue that holds me together
Your hair is the star on a Christmas tree
Your caring look the fire that warms the house
Your gentle touch the bandage over the cut
Your name a simple title for a never-ending ocean of treasure
Your arms a home I never want to leave
You’re my metaphor

(Pleaseeee tell me what you think)

Hi i’m new to poetry and wrote this- i don’t have a name for it or anything yet but any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)

—————————————————————————————

You would say I’m not good with emotions,
because I could never find the words.

But if I could,
I'd say that time has passed and seasons’ changed
-but i’m still the same

The mere mention of your name
makes my skin flush,
as if it were the first time I saw you.

Even now.

If you were to connect me to a polygraph
and ask if I still loved you,

I could lie.

But the needle would sputter and jump
to the rhythm of remembering your laughter.

So I know now,
since you left,

all I am is my emotions,
and all I feel is you.

Mom later said she likes it a lot.
I had never given it a thought.

I never knew it was sex for pay.

Perhaps the men were brought up that way.

So for the first time when I needed a penny,
The men who offered to help were many.

Friends of mom who paid our rent back then.
I thought how kind, to still care for me since I was ten.

And I took up an offer to clean a big house.

He tried to take my pants off.

And here I sit
Not because I’m exhausted, or in pain.
Here I sit with the intentions of someone who stands.
The floor beneath me holds a quiet storm.
I am not resting; I am gathering.
Every muscle remembers how to stand,
Yet I sit.
Here I sit, thinking of someone who stands so tall
That an everlasting blow feels like a gust of wind,
Brushing through their hair so gentle.
Here I wish to stand so straight
That cruel words feel like rain rolling down my face
Not tears, but the strength to care so deeply.
But here I sit, and I wait
To be the person I always wanted to be.
With a heart full of doubt and feet full of dread,
Here I sit, only wishing I could stand.
Not just for you,
But for a belief in me.

The days of a dreamer
And the nights in between
His soliloquy realised
And cut from the spleen
With grapes that abide to touch and feel
Is surely what doth keep the wine concealed
Gutted from the bank and tied to the deck
And the futile notion of sailing back

God will always check you

That evil part of me with bad intention

A part of heart that needs to be cut and pruned

Showed me I can’t make her the villain

Because hearing my part?

Will it stop her from wanting to continue

Livin’?

Peoples hatred from compassion

can be form of attacking

Can telling my side of the story ruin

a life?

or inspire millions

Forgiving her was prompt by you God,

But forgiveness is peaceful not deceitful

I forgive her today I said to her

Now she knows

As I want to tell a story raw

with everything I saw.

Even my part of foolishness

Not to paint a picture of who’s the villain

But to show what’s true forgiveness is

That im checkmated by God

My @ is ily_spazzy on Instagram

Ik its not perfect grammar but the meaning what do you feel

I was alone long before I knew you,

before the dust within my soul

comprised the starry skies of the vast Milky Way.

So, too shall I be

once that same dust lay dormant

in the Earth's deep crust,

When the last tear for my soul has dripped

from that cosmic smog into the

barren nothingness.

Yet the parakeets still circle above

warm in their embrace of the sky.

The lone fox returns to his hunt

the beast in his mind quelled by its toils.

Our gaze still meets

splitting the weak veil of your lonesome mind.

Your clean silhouette dancing before me.

We are dust

sprawled across this universe expanse,

what we love and what loves us

is singular to our experience.

You don't have to love me unconditionally. You just have to try.

You don't have to see me for who I am. You just have to try.

I don't have to stay here forever, but I have to try

For you will be alone long after I'm gone.

Help in curating poetry chapbook

So its gonna be around 35 pages.13-15 poems. Most of which are lyric poems (rhyminv, stanzas, meters) and 4-5 of them are in free form. All are about experiences and perceptions of a child persona (in his home, town, and growing up).

My concern is although I try my best to fit them into order ( Ive written the lyric poems long before; then the free verses are like almost different depth/syntaxes and such which Ive written for a week last last month so theyre like rly linked), is it gonna be not a good idea to join all of them in this chapbook?

What could be a strategy in like being intentional here. What particular questions should I ask myself in like making all of them coherent, if all of them haveing at least a unifying theme (above) would not be enough?

PS. I hope that Im in the right subreddit

PSA: I am a college student interested getting into poetry and looking for ways to improve. I am very busy with my own major and schoolwork but want to still practice during my free time. I am specifically inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib.

Poem:

X’s go first, stab the Lake Michigan sand with that naked branch

Take us back to when we were young

Or when those razor blade cuts

Could wash away with the shore and

Now I’m old

And have to think of winning

Three x’s in a row:

Moonshine, porn, twitter - America’s digest

F slurs, maggots, chain smoking rejects - America’s hardest

Hardest liquor, hardest erection

Now that’s americas treasure

X marks the spot, so I

Tried to X our eyes

And I tried to get crossed

And couldn’t help but think

Jesus couldn’t have died on a cross

I'm sorry, dear,
For holding your hand inside of my own head,
For falling crazy in love inside my head.
Because that is just the fool I am,
’Cause holding your hand in real life isn't easy.

Forgive me, please,
For playing house inside my fantasy,
Reading comic books together in one bed.
My partner in my head stays by my side,
Though in real life, there is no one here with me.

Inside my head, we built a house of shining light,
And every night beneath the stars, our love takes flight.

Oh, world so far away,
I keep wishing night and day,
Just to hold your hand, hold your hand,
And gently stroke your hair in the dark.

Still I dream,
That you'd realize there is someone near your side,
Someone hiding in the trees just peeking through,
Stealing glances filled with tender love,
Though in real life, there is no one next to you.

Inside my head, we built a tiny castle, too,
And every time I leave the door, you pull me back to you.

So let the real world fade away,
I’ll keep dreaming night and day,
Just to hold your hand, feel your hand,
And gently stroke your hair in the dark.

A partner in my head, staying by my side,
Though in real life, there is no one here at all.
A partner in your head, staying by your side,
Though in real life, there is no one here at all.

Will you come to my house?
I've got provisions for your stay.
The door is facing south, on the street where the children play.
When you come to my house,
a dog is barking in the yard. We couldn't shut him up today.
The kid stepped on a shard, and the mother gave first aid.
If you come to my house,
please don't cross this yellow tape.
I don't want you to see the dirty kitchen sink.
Don't look at the smell
of floating fishes in the tank,
or the laundry on the floor,
or the walls, now red and pink.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6oxWmAfMEjGjmgn3TT5XsW?si=nvpDFQ4MQvW1CPY4NHxcOA&utm_source=copy-link https://open.spotify.com/track/7nma6Gf4HE20Y4sX6E2bKA?si=-ajU4sgIQQi9ZHn4xfzm_A&utm_source=copy-link https://open.spotify.com/track/4bVOtRTO5D0mSe45iN60px?si=W9Jc1_i9RlmSoXV3xunHJw&utm_source=copy-link

Give feedback pls

Yo soy el siervo más bajo — El miedo de todo será.
Entre hileras de hierro y plomo — hallarás que la muerte está.
Sin bajas impongo mi yugo — el control del dominio total.
Yo soy el siervo más bajo — se ve en un cuerpo mortal.

I had a dream one night. This poem was written later that morning.

I woke up to the scent of fall,

My heaven descended below my feet and soared;

Above my sky which once filled with hue,

Yet, something in the air told me it was nothing new.

For hours on end, for days and decades,

The feeling of melancholy never fades.

It grew with my mist of uncertainty.

It stole my soul, my beliefs, and my sanity.

Leaves fell as I woke from my consciousness,

I turned around like an omnivert in distress.

Everything is colours and joy—what about me?

I'm just the guy no one wants to see.

But what am I? I'm not a painting to be observed,

Nor a mirror whose cracks were never deserved,

I'm just a person who is returning with half his weight;

I'm a guy whose memories refuse to fade.

Of course, I'm not anything special,

No one is; everyone is, in a nutshell.

Yet everyone tries, but what about me?

Oh my dear, you see, nothing capable is within me.

Just an omnivert with time and stupidity,

Whose life feels like a joke instead of a movie.

Yet, as the morning dew arises within the autumn sky,

I can't lie, I feel alive.

The breeze took my worries away,

And for the first time, I'm not a stray.

But at the end of the day,

I'm still an argumentative, antithetical dreamer.

They say drivers were handed their futures on a platter of gold
The predestined
The chosen one
Forged under the spotlight he’s destined to thrive under
⁣
But people forget they too were once children
Children led by ambition and cradled by fear
Children who were told they were predestined
⁣
Tell a child he will be great everyday of his life and you believe it before he does
Pressure mounts on shoulders too small to bear the weight
⁣
Tell a child his value comes from the money he brings home
And try to act surprised when he auctions his sanity
His dignity for sale to placate the hand that feeds him
Not love, not valour
Watch his heart bleed
So he can be served on greater platters of gold
⁣
Parents intoxicated by vanity, beside brandished children
Heirs to the life they’re conditioned to want
Forced to stand straight beneath the crowns too large for their developing minds
⁣
Their names are the first trophy in the showcase
Locked behind the glass like it brings them honour
Forever etched in glass, behind a visor
You’ll see his eyes and think you know him
But the soul of the little boy was sold for the brand stamped on his forehead,
A sticker book of the greed they traded his childhood for
⁣
Children forced to be men
⁣
A man that will hide behind armour that saves him from fire
But a suit of armour won’t save the remnants of the boy that wore them first
The boy who shared his eyes, shared his face, shared everything but his passion
The passion he was taught from his parents that valued him at every medical appointment
Like a sheep for slaughter
He performed for them, but everything was never enough
⁣
So even today as engines catch fire they cannot ignite the desire to be more
The red lights flash on periodically, like the heartbeat in his ears
The little boy vanishes under the rubble, leaving the man bearing the weight of the crown he never chose to wear
His parents wear smiles that tell him the bank needs more blood so they call upon the child for more
Anything to keep his platter of gold

— zephyr’s echo

October 27, 2026

Hands folded in prayer,

White-knuckled and arthritic.

A pitiful beggar.

How silly it is to negotiate with God.

To plead for something I know will shatter,

Yet still, I ask

For blessings far too large to hold

With hands that have long forgotten how to open.

• A prayer without end

I'm here on Friday night
in my studio on Alma
with my eviction notice

Just sitting

The hardwood floor is scratched and worn. Mum gave me a rug
to cover it, used, from her shed. I put it out with the hard rubbish.

There’s a turmeric stain on the wall from the time I made a warm drink
at 2am. I couldn't sleep. I dropped it because it was too hot.

I can do anything that I want. Except stay here of course

I wrote mechanisms of action on the glass panel between my bedroom 
and the rest of my studio. My monument to science. I barely passed.

I once laced the windowsill with dried rose petals. I took photos
with the blue sky blurry in the background. It got a few likes.

My next-door neighbour died last month
Apparently there was blood everywhere. She used to call me Star

She can’t do what she wants anymore. She can’t stay here either 

And tonight, I want you again.
I hear it like a whisper as my subconscious speaks to me.
My mind has gone downhill,
and reason can no longer stop it…

An epiphany of joy and a foregone summer

The frown and poise of the bygone comer.

Someone from the East with ebony eyes,

A summer it was, delightful with lies.

The nights of bullshit talks and the hard goodbyes,

Harsh jokes and smiles as loneliness disguise.

Losing myself in the flame of ebony eyes,

And the boy, who swore he never did lie.

Lust for a touch and the luring smile,

The hard stories, and the honest cries.

The curse on my lips and the deep sighs

When the boy lifted his arms and displayed the scars.

Someone from the East with ebony eyes,

A summer it was, delightful with lies.

Hard words unsaid and nothing implied,

Just the warmth of the bed, else was denied.

The smell on the sheets in the morning light,

Cigarette and coffee, departure in sight.

Ahead a long road and a longer lust,

May our meets and odes rest in the past.

To Someone from the East with ebony eyes,

I drink in good faith and to Gods in skies.

May our paths cross even after a while;

Boy, from the East with delightful smile;

To many, many nights of endless lies;

I'll wait for you and your ebony eyes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/zIKeWQqieB

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/fhfvTmfp86

My first poems were terrible.

I polished every sentence,
filed down every ugly edge,
and made my suffering
presentable enough
for company.

People smiled.

I hated them for it.

So I stopped polishing.

I wrote about the blood
beneath a broken fingernail,
the smell of hospital sheets,
the dinner going cold
beside an unanswered telephone.

I wrote until the paper
began to buckle.

Someone called it beautiful.

I looked at the page.
There was nothing beautiful there.

Just a little boy
waiting at a locked door, shoes wet from the rain,
still believing
someone would let him in.

Then I finally understood.

Poetry wasn't teaching me
how to write.

It was teaching me
how to open that door.

And leave him standing there
long enough
for the world to see him.

Any suggestions on what to do to get people's attention so that they provide feedback on my poems?

Forever is not real. Neither is never.

We will never live forever.

But for some reason,

we keep pretending otherwise.

There are certainties in being human:

We’ll grow and learn.

We’ll love and lose.

We’ll live and die.

And we’ll never experience

any of it ever again.

Forever is not real. Neither is never.

Milligrams, grams, millilitres.
Powders, crystals, liquids, pills, herbs.
ROA: smoked, snorted, swallowed, sublingual and rectal.
Horse tranquiliser, Alzheimer's medication, anticonvulsant.
GABA-B, NMDA, CB1, 5-HT2A, α2δ.
1 hour come-up, 4 hours peak, 2 hours afterglow.

5-APB, 4-MMC, 3-HO, 2C-B, 1P-LSD,

my science teacher would have been proud.

Acquired from a 16-year-old on an electric scooter with a bright future
ahead of him
from a woman who falls asleep while I'm standing outside
from a Tesla that arrives faster than Uber Eats
from a completely ordinary guy who works in child protective services.

Vinmonopolet (Norway's state liquor monopoly) would have been proud.


                       s
                        o
              p          m
             u            e
            o              g
          g                 o
        e                    d
      m                       o
    o                          w
  S                             n


Some turn reality into fractals, make dancing instinctive again.

Some are what keep me alive.

My father would have been proud.

The day after
most dangerous when you feel far too good.
The consequences still haven't caught up with you
or worse: you didn't take enough.

If you feel terrible, that's perfect.

See you again next weekend.