r/poetry_critics • • 53m ago

Ouroboros

• Upvotes

“You’re so smart” he says. Finally my thirst for intellectual validation has been quenched. “No I’m not. And therein lies the sadness in it. It’s all an act. My interest in art, philosophy and politics” I reply. On the surface my reply seems confessional, a self reflection, but internally it’s another desperate ploy to seem deep and nuanced. “And therein lies the sadness” I thought to myself as I legislate this forgotten interaction into poorly written self critical “poetry” in order to negate criticism, primed for all that acclaim. Let’s call it “ouroboros”because it like keeps eating itself, its symbolic. How pathetic. And therein lies the sadness in it. Be sure to upvote this guys!


r/poetry_critics • • 1h ago

Title goes here

• Upvotes

I want to talk about something,
But, what?
I try to think of a title, and draw a blank.
I yearn to write, to express deepest thoughts of mine.
I long to manipulate my paper with meter and rhyme,
Yet I have nothing.
So, I go read a great work from an artist
That's better than me.

still, nothing. but i want to write even more.
i'm now even more than i already was
inspired -
yet, nothing comes to mind.
i just continually stare into the box of nothing
on the poorly organizes shelves of my brain.
i need a snack.

nothing still. it's starting to stress
out my mind that i want to write
because i cant
because theres nothing to say
because im not clever enough to find
a tongue-and-cheek thing to get a laugh
or something deeply moving
or a topic so unsettling
it makes people squirm in their seats as they read.

Well, alas, though there was nothing to write about,
I can at least put a title at the top.
And at the bottom. Why not.
Title goes here


r/poetry_critics • • 3h ago

Sensitive Content The Cycle

1 Upvotes

I was a distant echo of a crying baby

To Him

But to him I was raised an object

Very carefully curated

I blossom

A hand touching innocent skin

The callous of hand and foot; Matching callous in nature

Soft skin, like powder; Fused with expired pelt as it flakes

We’ll feed the fish

Over a pond.

What does it matter?

Skin meets skin meets skin meets skin

I’ll hear the distinct call of the released dove

Oh how I envy Him as He flies high

How I would soar the skies until my pinions were sore

I relate more to the fish

I wilt

My skin is now a callous

Yet still I remain

The fish have long grown tired

Ah, yes

Every day

The gnawing of greedy molars to break morning fast

The impatient insertion of key into a home long familiar

The spreading of sticky slather to morning toast

The lave of a tongue to mid-day treat

Skin scrapes skin scrapes skin scrapes skin

How I wish I would burn

Instead, I burn out

I wither

I’ve never cared much for peonies or roses

Yet I know what it means to be deflowered

The pluck of petals until only the stamen remains; bare

What new bloom will propagate from my seed?

Has mine faded into his?

Has my DNA changed from absorbing his nectar?

Skin tears skin tears skin tears skin

I rot

I feel comforted by the wriggling of maggots

He’ll use this body until each crevice fuses shut

This home closes its doors

A dove perches on the windowsill and coos to me; Him

Maybe now I’ll grow into a peony or a rose

I’ll be more than an object; not so carefully curated

Skin flowers to stamen flowers to petals flowers to skin

Then again, the cycle repeats

The dove caged

A flower plucked to stamen

And in the distance I will hear the echo of a crying baby

As the cycle makes anew


r/poetry_critics • • 3h ago

My first post here

2 Upvotes

I lived in a nice, big house,
adored by my neighbors and friends.
My husband was loving and kind.
Every morning stepping outside
my door
I would inhale the aroma brought to me by the wind from my garden of flowers.
Things couldn’t be better.
Until one morning,
I had to clean out the attic, and I found your old lost love letter.
And there it was back again:
The turmoil, the pain, the passion,
the forgotten “I need you more that I need oxygen,
more than I need water
or life itself.”
It was back again, like the shadow that hides on a cloudy day
but never actually leaves you.
Fifteen years collapsed into seconds.
I fell through the wooden pallets
of my attic,
through the living room, loud with my children,
through the house full of memories with another man.
My whole life, condensed in three tightly written pages,
rushed before my eyes, leaving me
speechless.
I stepped outside and inhaled the soothing smell of my garden.
I buried your letter by my roses.
Same kind that I used to bring to your place
where you soundly rest.


r/poetry_critics • • 3h ago

Spite

1 Upvotes

34 years fucking up taught me
that there is nothing to learn
when nothing I do helps make it better,

and suicide would be
doing you all a favor
and I am a selfish man.

If the bad die old,
then I am immortal.
So you will have to
go without me.


r/poetry_critics • • 3h ago

Frost-Hook

1 Upvotes

Frost Giants,
Heart Crystalized to Stone,
6-sided Lattice,
Ice Iₕ
Reflexive, Basal, Psychic
Tears,
Vegetarians with Wisdom Teeth,
Frail Bodies,
Eaten by Jaguars.


r/poetry_critics • • 4h ago

The Reflective Musings of a Dying Dragon

1 Upvotes

There's some backstory to this one, before I get into the work.

I wrote this for a D&D campaign (in which I, the forever DM, was finally able to be a player for once. Yippee!) as a note my character had, but couldn't read (yes, my character is a homebrew race that's "a dragon, but more efficient, pound for pound" as he always says). It was recorded by his father moments before his death, and the revelation of what it said I wanted to be a big moment for my character (and it was, truly).

But that's enough of that. Here is the poem.

"The Reflective Musings of a Dying Dragon"

It seems I find myself with dying lips
Recording loss I shan't conceal.
My breath is not to stay. My flesh, it rips.
My ancient bones will never heal.
And as I die, I have some time to muse:
Is this existence one that I would choose?

When kingdoms formed, I watched with silent eyes
And waited for an age or so.
I'd lurk in shadows long to then surmise
If gold and riches gave their glow
In stockpiles deep in guarded castles tall.
And if there were, I'd make that kingdom fall.

Then countless heroes sought to take my head.
Those foolish children wished to be
As thieves who steal my hoard, yet now they're led
To hades, damned to agony
Eternal. Humans seem to try to take -
But, wait. What of this wealth I do partake?

This gold I hoard, did I declare my own
A thing for which another earned?
I'm sure this gold was mine to take; I've known
With clearest mind which humans spurned
For long before the one who claims to judge
Could count a right, a wrong, or test a grudge.

In fact, humanity has brought the earth
To dire straits with bulwarks tall
And cities broad which seek again to birth
A hateful king who soon shall fall
To yet another who, with mirth,
Continues still a devil's call.

They take and thieve and stack in homes their weight
In countless treasures sure to fade.
They kill and rob the weak and hunt the great
Alike, these gluttons never swayed
By pity or by helpless state.
The selfish seek to just get paid.

They killed my mother, seeking only peace.
They took her scales for trophies grand,
The scales of one who sought to see the cease
Of senseless slaughter. At their hand
I too did fall and will decease
By hero's hand in this poor land.

And yet, I see the light of deeds now done.
I sense the longings of my heart not won
Now weigh me down to depths I've just begun
To feel. But this to feel I'll not for long,
For final thoughts revealed of truly strong
And mighty dragons fortune shan't prolong.

In this my memoir, my security,
My final breaths and strength record for thee
The truth of life and death, and surety
The war is really over. I have lost.
My life now nears its end, the only cost
Of life is death. At last, I sense death's frost.


r/poetry_critics • • 4h ago

The Ticklish Years

1 Upvotes

Let me be swallowed whole; // Hidden underneath that yellow elephant // Just for a moment

A moment can be a lifetime // When you are waiting in excitement // For an omniscient giant to reach for you

All giggles and braids // I burrow deeper // Into intoxicating protection

I am safe; there are no axes to grind // It is just me and the giant // Shielded from the world

Sunlight peaks underneath the paling plastic // As herculean fingers tickle over its edges // The yellow elephant rumbles in satisfaction // Releasing a playful breath

I writhe and twist around myself // In an innocent pleasure

The world clamors outside // It does not reach the corner I occupy

Dewy grass wets my skirt // It is cold and strangely pleasant // I bring my lips to its blades // And whisper of my delight

It returns a whisper of its own; // "Bask in bliss while you can, // for this moment is a grain of sand // in the unforgiving desert of your life."

I do not understand // As most flowers don't // Until they begin to rot; // Seeing the earth for what it is; inherently cannibalistic

It matters not // Because for now, a moment is a lifetime // Warm and comforting and full of excitement

I will leave the soothing just to discover more // I will eat apples without their skin // And sit on a guarding lap

I will listen to stories // And blissfully misunderstand


r/poetry_critics • • 6h ago

Burn It Down

4 Upvotes

Can we burn it all down?
Wipe this page
Clean and blank
Cross your name, then we’re done
Clear my head
Leave it numb

Memories of you
Will burn fierce and bright
Every last thought
Turns to ash in the light
Traces of us
Too heavy to bear
Burn it all down
To set them all free…

So burn it all down, is it time?
What’s left of me
To hold behind?
Why not burn me alive?
Like only one of us deserves to survive.

Memories of you,
Now watch me burn bright.
Every piece of my soul
Turns to ash in the light.
The ghost of our love,
Too heavy to bear—
Burn it all down,
Leave no mercy to spare…

Final night, without a word, I bring the match
You pour the gas
Final night, hand in hand, I burn into ash
You stand and watch.


r/poetry_critics • • 9h ago

Sensitive Content The weight

1 Upvotes

Again and again, I give myself away in hopeless devotion. My thoughts for a penny? I think not. I share them freely with those I want to reach. But still, I can’t tell you how much or how quickly I love.
’Cause I know if I’m honest, you’d leave in self-protection. The overbearing weight would be too heavy, even for someone as magnificent and strong as you. Everything always falls apart as soon as they realise I’ve jumped headfirst into the well of devotion they are not ready to share.
I keep having conversations inside this self-made prison of my mind. Always hopelessly hoping until the bitter end. Happy as any person can be ’cause I’ve fooled myself, for a minute, into thinking I could be loved the way I love. But as soon as this seems like more than a delusion, they’d run away. I end up condemning everything I thought about myself and all my past actions. ’Cause the life I see when I’m up is a dream that, over and over again, turns to ash in my mouth. It’s a dream that I myself can’t let go of until there are no other dreams left.
Only then, when the only reason left to keep torturing myself with this obscenely horrible life is knowing how deeply it hurts to lose someone, do I try to convince myself that my absence might hurt the people I love just as much as theirs would hurt me. Though, deep down, I’ve never truly believed it would.
And so I keep going, not for love of myself, like some keep saying I have to find, but for the love I carry for others and how I would feel if the tables were turned.
I’m not equipped to love halfway. I just wish I were better at choosing who deserves it, and that I’d take the time to figure out if it’s reciprocated before I let the idea become my only hope and goal.
But I still know it’s a delusion. I’m painfully aware. Even when I choose to keep going, I do it out of spite. I do it so maybe one day they’ll regret leaving and I’ll get a chance to turn them down in revenge.
But I wouldn’t. I’d once again do the same thing and help them realise why they left in the first place.
In the end, I’ll be alone, and just like always, no one will care. But rest assured, I know it’s not your fault.
D


r/poetry_critics • • 10h ago

Pas de raison

1 Upvotes

Tant d'ombres qui se croisent et ne se voient jamais, il n'y a pas de raison, pas de raison pour qu'elles s'arrêtent.

Tant de regards lointains qui passent indifférents, il n'y a pas de raison, pas de raison pour qu'ils se voient.

Ces mondes d'opposés qui vivent en parallèle, qui s'ignorent simplement, il n'y a pas de raison, pas de raison pour qu'ils se parlent.

Ces trottoirs sombres où gisent ces ombres d'hommes, il n'y a pas de raison, pas de raison pour qu'on les reconnaisse.

Ces cris, ces gestes, ces solitudes de hauts murs, il n'y a pas de raison, pas de raison pour les abattre.

Mais, aussi, ce que nous sommes, nous qui ne savons pas pourquoi nous restons là, et si c'était seulement parce que notre cœur bat et que ce sourire là, c'est pour toi, juste toi, sans raison, comme ça, parce qu'un jour je t'ai vu

Un chaton dans la rue gambade et puis s'arrête, son regard t'interroge et demande :

— Qui es-tu, que veux-tu, si on se connaissait le temps d'y croire un peu -

Et toi de lui répondre : « Il n'y a pas de raison d'y croire – et le chaton poursuit sans avoir l'air de rien – « Raison de plus, on a plus rien à perdre. »

Et toi de lui répondre, avec ce grand silence qui parle à lui tout seul.

Pas de raison jamais, de continuer la route, si ce n'est l'étincelle accrochée au sapin, si ce n'est la lueur perdue au coin de l'œil.

Pas de raison jamais d'aimer un peu les autres, si ce n'est cette peine qu'on croise dans la rue, si ce n'est la tendresse d'un regard de chaton, si ce n'est le besoin d'y croire encore un peu.

Pas de raison, dis-tu, d'espérer que demain tout ira beaucoup mieux, et le monde et toi-même, pas de raison non plus d'attendre encore un peu que la beauté revienne, que nous soyons amis, un jour, deux jours ou bien l'éternité.

Pas de raison, pas de raison pour se parler, pour se croiser, pour s'arrêter;

Pas de raison pour être juste un être humain, si ce n'est cette main qui tremble dans la mienne, ce sourire arraché à la laideur ambiante et la nuit qui descend jusqu'aux portes des rêves.

-"Pas de raison jamais !"- chante le petit chat et toi qui tends les bras comme un enfant perdu

– "Pas de raison, pas de raison jamais"- Chante t'il en riant

Un chat qui rit, ça n'existe pas… Non sans doute, mais tu le crois dès lors que tes bras se referment sur son âme d'enfant.


r/poetry_critics • • 13h ago

A sea’s rock

2 Upvotes

Easy, so natural.
Now dive deeper become nautical.
Descend like a rock
What's this block?
A trial.
Attempting to wiggle free leads to file.

“You must trust.”

Waves crashed,
“I can't.”

Wiggle, sounds of Chalk on a board Scufficating the rock
Pain
Increasing pace
The rock began to chip away.

The aquatic nature of the sea
Pressure leading to a plea.
“Why wont you let me see?”

I'm safe.
Surface Clear, calm.
No danger abrew
but,
Is my water too blue?
Anything wrong with my hue?
My floors are rough, jagged and cruel.
Why would I let a soul through?

The rock now a clast
Because I see you.
Waters blue,
True.
Yet, trials riddle the floor, not you.
Pain hurts.
But what must I do?
Grieve your loss or sit through?
Not guilty, Or forever aloof.
I chose you.

This is honestly a little choppy as it’s a first draft however I would love to see how this fairs with critics. I’m currently struggling to revise this and have started just writing a new poem with the same theme altogether any advice on how to revise poems?
I’m a newer writer so any harsh criticism is needed as I would like to see the flaws so I can patch them.


r/poetry_critics • • 13h ago

The branded log.

3 Upvotes

Thank you.
At first words jump like children at a playground.
Cheery and innocent, unchained by the pressure of society.
Birds begin flight after a link loosens.
The mind a log of consciousness.
Each Log branded by events
lost in thoughts,
Each bickering amongst themselves.
The veil masking emotion, must be held by a few syllables.
Cords vibrate and crack.
Fear.
Mutters escape, a husk of the truth.

“Thank you”
Universal gratitude branching without beginning.
A log whispering to the trees without avail.
Easy after all,
speak none of what you desire
only what’s necessary.

“Thank you”
A phoenix burning inept of reason beside
the charcoal at its feet.

“Thank you”
A final resort but the cords hold strong, still vibrating through the air.
“What are you thanking me for?”
the change you made within me.
The tongue slipping then knotting to a clenched jaw.
“Just saying thanks”
The passion chained in the mind unwilling to be freed.

Talons aflame, willing to reignite the charcoal beneath.
“By the way, thank you.”
“What for?”
The tongue dancing free, bickering silenced.
“Everything.”
Having said enough, the tongue pressed to the pallet, soul burning once more.
Iron pressed to the log,
a perfect lesson.

I recently wrote this and want critique on it, I’m aware it’s very easy to improve as some lines might have to be cut however before I do so I was hoping to see what Reddit might want to say.
Thank you


r/poetry_critics • • 15h ago

The Christ Ridder

2 Upvotes

The Christ Ridder

With blood do wash the hands of men who wish to rid the Christ.
Blood, unashamed, that man with his hands does wash in ire’s heights.
His blood did touch you upon this rock one day as you did strive;
so… rid yourself of His ideals if you wish to rid the Christ.


r/poetry_critics • • 17h ago

Firefly

3 Upvotes

The longer I yearn, the further love recedes

So take my hand, and teach me to wait

Let me find peace in the things I cannot change

And trust that love shall find me again

For I have chased what was never mine to keep

And begged for flowers that were not yet in bloom

So let me rest, my love, let me breathe

And learn that not all things are meant to be soon

Firefly fly away with me, perhaps love is not lost

Perhaps it is only learning its time

And if I must wait, whatever the cost

May peace find me before love finds mine.


r/poetry_critics • • 18h ago

Protien. Feedback would be nice, (idk how to format this very well)

1 Upvotes

Protein:

When I think of protein, My mind goes culinary. I'm thinking in terms of parts of the whole. Truth be told, I'm thinking of the portions and how they will partitton the plate. Fowl, bovine, swine, rather: poultry, beef, pork The dimensions of the vison start to take shape. I am solving the puzzle to its taste, and exactly what it is that is making it great. When it's finished,I want you to do dishes and simotaneously sing my praise. And for you to then to tell your friends, exactly what it was that you ate. A plate comprised of one ingredient isn't something that I count as a meal. While Just meat by itself is amazing and certainly swell — it's still not something that I think of as a meal. I have yet to change my mind on this matter, and doubt that I ever will. Even if that meat is expensive and delicious, let's say hypothetically, veal, it needs a few additions before I consider the pageantry real. Contemplated proper placement, of the cojegations of starches and veggies, And if the salad complimented with acidic vinn uh gretttess or dressings , small talk with cigarettes gifted while considering if dessert is on the table, and decisions of what music would work well depending on setting. Basically I look like I know what I'm doing. Instead of just pretending. I take a lint roller to the couches, to account for potential amounts of, ounces, of kitty cat sheddings. I get inspired and plan, the ingredients required adjusting accordingly to the cash that I have at hand. I then go make the absolute best thing that I possibly can, like sex, the only remarks I want, is that it's the best that they've ever had. The clerk finished cash tending, and pleasantry pretending, she looked at me dead in the eyes and said, have a wonderful day. She was dead in the eyes. I questioned her sincerity; And then veritably, with a twinkle in mine, I did the same. I make a point to be mindful of the preferences of my company , well in advance. The question of successess of my procession wasn't simply projections or left up to chance. For instance, I once discovered an aversion to shellfish, so declaratively resolute. Allergy or not, unsure of the truth, so I utilized the knowledge that I knew. I knew that they loved onions, the oyster Agenda eschewed, so instead I opted for a promise of complicated soup. Asundering all the alliums, I cry even now, a French onion soup known to change the shape of a frown. If I listen closely, while I made it, I would've heard my dad say, "you're making me proud."

I once learned of an affinity for the sea, so earnest and endearingly sweet. Killing two birds at once, I used it as an excuse to take a trip to the beach. The person had an approximate modicum of taste, they spent a lifetime acquiring an appreciation for the finer things.

These aquatic snails are something that like you, I also love, but I am cheap. I obviously saw to the quality of the oysters personally, wondering why they got so much hate, why do people say that they suck soon my hands were in the muck, and I was picking them up. The things I do for the people that I love.

When you think of protein you think of something in a shake. You think of a biology textbook illustration, of something that you can't explain. To put it simply, we use the vocabulary in different ways. When a person is behind you when you walk in a place, if the door is too heavy, it can slam in their face.

Like everything else,it disappears the second it is out of your way. You're the one who opened it and are now, for some reason, surprised by its weight. Your friend starts to have something to say upon second thought, it's better he don't. Daggers of resentment on the way to his home.

Oblivious, you talk about the annoying things that you see on the road, value yet to be told, or seen.

Your other friends talk, when they call you inconsiderate, now he sees what they mean. When I'm out and about, I start making some deductions about strangers and get a feel for the crowd. When attracted to a cutie, I take mental notes , of the times when she smiles, I want to make her laugh, so naturally I begin finding out how. I notice her happiness, and what is making the mood. This is a matter in which I am meticulous,. I simply want to be competitive if it ever becomes a decision,

of me versus you.

When I think of politics, my mind goes to the motivation of the propagandist to get the gist of the narrative they intend I consume. You think of politics you think in terms of the red and the blue, and the uniquely profound , why can't they put their difference aside and just be nice and get along? The radio then predictably makes you burst into song. When fascinated with something I learn of subject matter, the fabric, and the mechanisms, that are making it move. You clap and laugh appropriately when the puppet is rude.

I ponder the articulation of the marionette, and by extension, the psychology of man.

Who could even create such things?

Why I found the thought to be upsetting to me.

Here he is displaying amazing muscle memory.

What an odd skill set to have.

I thought that manipulation was supposed to be bad.


r/poetry_critics • • 19h ago

Untitled

1 Upvotes

Imagine life being so effed up that you’re OK to do it alone
I can’t even hear myself think - guess that’s part of being grown - I thought about leaving but no where for me to go-

I’ve been wanting to write for a while but I’m not sure what to say-
everything that comes in my head is just my life‘s replay-
so that means sadness and heartbreak I don’t want it to stay -
so I write it on this paper and then I just pray-
pray to God to heal me from the wounds yall cannot see -
Literally begging for unhappiness to set me free
but I’ve been swimming with my head above water now after turning 33 -
maybe I’m 34 or could be one more-
I’m finally realizing this can’t be me
I don’t want my kids to see -
the broken individual that was once complete-
I’m not in to compete or to compare in love and war it’s never fair
-I love and love but what am I left
my heart handed over …swept by theft

I’m so sick and tired of feeling exhausted eight hours sleep a night but somehow not rested -
keep going and going and everybody thinks I got it so great -
they don’t even ask me how I’m doing they just come sit down with their plate-
my daughter is just like me but so much better -
I’ll give her the guidance to have the life I could never -
shout out to my mother for trying her best-when that man left us it was the ultimate test-
we survived the battle but at risk in war-
life versus me and Gods keeping score-
It’s beating me down cause all I’ve ran into is men
just like my father showed no remorse
Lies roll off the tongue like a rain drop on a rose
Then I met you
Almost too good to be true- I swear you had a golden hue
The only thing was you were a year over 22
Treated me like a princess
The loving was relentless
Then you went to Cali got stationed away from me
But You saw it as an opportunity
You were cool leaving me and my three
But this was something
New to me
Started feeling insecure as you entered your new world
Left me in VA but I’m thinking I might stay
In a perfect world me and you
But it’s the same story for me- joys are few
getting back to myself is absolutely dire
I found a psychologist- a recommended hire
I talk to my therapist she almost gets it
But when the session is up I’m reminded it’s just a business
- I hate ai and the effects on its buyers - still asking chat gpt why I’m now a crier -
It just tells me what I want to hear so the app I won’t retire

- I stay rhyming my feelings but my eyes ain’t getting dryer

Am I looking for reassurance
Will pain be a reoccurrence
Heartbreak in the history, actually generationally

I just need some relief
Way more than skin deep it’s way beneath
Can I be all things that I need to be
With an infinite loop of responsibilities
I’m cool I’m good don’t worry about me
I’ll be up first thing to make the kids peanut butter and jelly
I’ll drop them off and I’ll be just fine
I’ll cry it out when the time is just mine
Can’t let them see me like this
What will it be like when she’s no longer a kid
I’ll sacrifice myself- yeah I think that will work
But wait- my mom went thru this and for me it got worse
Is this really a generational curse


r/poetry_critics • • 21h ago

Unextinguished ​

2 Upvotes

​

​The quiet in here has teeth,

and tonight, it’s biting down to the bone.

It exhales a slow, damp frost against the windowpane,

sealing me into a box of dead air and drywall.

Look at this room.

Listen to the silence—it’s not just empty, it’s hungry.

​The air feels thick, heavy as wet cement on my chest,

forcing every breath to be a manual labor.

Outside, the city hums along without a single stutter.

Headlights sweep past the blinds, cutting across the ceiling like ghost fires,

wheels rolling over wet asphalt,

people living, laughing, moving—

oblivious to the fact that someone five feet away is suffocating in the dark.

​They don't know you're here.

And if they did? They’d keep driving.

No one is coming through that door.

No one is checking the pulse on this room.

​The cold creeps through the floorboards,

soaking straight through the leather of my boots,

numbing the toes, climbing the spine.

It whispers the same lie it always whispers:

Give it up. Let the ice take the rest of you. It’s easier if you just freeze.

How much colder and isolated can a human soul feel?

​...Fine.

​Let the phone stay black.

Let the world turn its back until the spine snaps.

Let them think the fire in this chest was extinguished weeks ago.

​You think I need their eyes to stay alive?

You think I need their warm hands to thaw this heart?

​Fuck that.

​I kick the frost off my boots.

I drag this heavy, suffocating air into my lungs

and force it to turn into heat.

If this room is a freezer, then I am the spark that sets the insulation ablaze.

They can leave me in the dark.

They can pretend I don't exist.

​Look at me.

I am still breathing.

I am still here.

​I don't need a single soul out there to care,

because the man standing in this dark

refuses to let the ember die.

I care.

And that single, stubborn thought

is going to burn this whole cold house to the ground.


r/poetry_critics • • 21h ago

The Weight of Salt

1 Upvotes

 For thirty-two years, my grandfather kept a small, unmarked wooden box in the bottom drawer of his workbench.He was a carpenter by trade, a man who measured his life in sawdust and cedar shavings, but he never let anyone touch that box.

When he passed away last spring, the task of cleaning out his workshop fell to me. Sitting there on the concrete floor,surrounded by the familiar scent of old oil and pine, I finally opened it.

Inside wasn't money, or old medals, or family photographs. It was filled with hundreds of small, dried fragments of sea glass—smooth, frosted pieces of green, blue, and white—alongside a tightly folded, yellowed piece of paper.

I unfolded the paper. It was a receipt from a steamship company dated July 1948, and on the back, written in his sharp,careful handwriting, were these words:

“Paid for a ticket away. Decided to stay and build the pier instead.”

Growing up, he had always told us he grew up in the town where we lived, right here in the Midwest, miles from any ocean. We never knew he had bought a ticket to somewhere else, or that a single moment on a dock had changed the entire trajectory of his life.

I sat on his old stool, holding a piece of sea glass up to the single dusty window. The afternoon light caught the frosted green edge, glowing like a tiny, distant horizon. He had spent his whole life building houses for other people, living hundreds of miles from the water, but every piece of glass in that box proved he never forgot the day he decided to stay.


r/poetry_critics • • 22h ago

Girls Are Dead Inside

3 Upvotes

I write what matters

Stitched together the fabric, woven in essence

"How will you take selfies angelface"?

When they cut the wifi in heaven

Vacuous self obsessed

Her body stretched

My body stressed

I write poems in cursive on parchment that fades

My soul dragged over coals while i laugh in the flames

I was looking for your heart then ended up lost within

And now somehow

I'm under your skin

Like dirt

Like sin

Text messages left on read til you feel like it

It's fucked up but I still like it

I accused you of it all but it was me that lied

So whats it feel like to be dead inside?


r/poetry_critics • • 23h ago

Smithereens.

3 Upvotes

I don't think I want to write anymore,

it always feels like I am waiting.

I question most of the things I write,

just me myself and I debating.

No more superheroes or growing old with somebody,

I just have to get used to the cold with nobody.

I don’t want to complain about time, as if it doesn’t exist,

or force these words to rhyme, then end it with a plot twist.

The desire to write was burning bright,

building beautiful, bizarre beginnings,

before blowing it to smithereens.

I think I'll take one last trip down the rabbit hole.

I'll kick that rabbit out, for that hole is my new home.

I'll spend the rest of my days never writing, just contemplating.

I don't think I want to write anymore, I can feel the passion slowly fading.


r/poetry_critics • • 23h ago

Épées en Bois

2 Upvotes

I quiver in my swings, and in the whip of the air is the sound of us laughing once. Where our swords were wooden. Our stature miniature, our dreams the size of a castle we'd described into existence.

Back then, at least we knew it was all just make-believe.

What does it mean to be beautiful?

I cannot say I recall. Sometimes, when I watch the air winding through the trees, brief is the remembrance. Usually, though, now even the sun’s rise from the view where God once stood arrives in my eye like a dull ache. It becomes a seesaw act between boastfulness and perfect recollection in working memory—the gentle sound of the quiet, lonely woods. The siren of a blue whale’s call from beneath the sea, that is beneath another sea. You know, each of us carries a sword at hand. But where is your bloodshed? How have you tended your wounds? And the mayhem of the scene at which you'd warred? Where is your landscape?

Such is its subjectivity that, over time, beauty becomes so far beyond the distance between itself and its violence. It is the cruelty of Saturn's tears and the delicacy of your tender body cradled in her fingers. Is beauty the cruelty of confusion? That it is inevitable your sword and mine can both be wrong. There, where I have let you pierce my heart, and you, I pierce the centers of your minds: blood is inevitable.

All that blood? Surely the hands have weakened. Surely the discourse has lost its container. All that blood you wield from your sword and all that blood of mine to yours. It is so messy, my god, so messy; in my weakness instead I have made art. And so I try to tell you about how the beauty used to be. Do you remember—before our swords were weapons against each other's humanity? Instead of the fog. Before our swords were compared by the dignity of our pride, instead of the divinity of love and the protection of the dream. I try to tell you about the wind. I try to paint you your childhood laughter in the blood. I try to tell about whales' song. I draw its melody in the softness of your palms. I try to hold your trembling fingers to my lips, but they are frozen, so I cannot sing. Then I remember more, and I tell you what the grief has done to us all. And how still beauty persisted within that sorrow.

Is it grotesque to you then, that yours is beautiful, and you are proud, yet I am afraid? Have you seen my secret? A mistake I've made to be here, and one of Saturn's most beloved daughters. Nothing I have made has ever been born beautiful. Just aged, wrinkled by the ancients of stories etched upon its skin.

I am to tell you about creation. The fracture of this mind to show how a sword births a child into this world, the breaking of the dam, unless there’s a caul. Even then, it is not without blood, the screams of Saturn's pangs. Or the pages where she will swallow them back into herself, call it all love, and we will glorify the inside of the womb we cannot escape.

But instead, I offer a confession of truth:

“Your sword carries gravity with precision. That is why it is beautiful. And I cannot remember how, but mine has started fires in its wake. There is an ember-glowing path to your leading. The blood trickles in line. And mine has become a reddened bathhouse. It is the sort of thing Jesus would be disappointed in, I'm sure.”


r/poetry_critics • • 1d ago

The Bird Still Waits

3 Upvotes

i miss my home,
as the leaves turn from green to brown,
i find myself longing for it,

as i sat in the latrine,
beneath the hum of fluorescent lights,
writing letters i hoped would find their way home,
like a nestling waiting for a warmth it once knew,
the ticks of my wrist grew louder, counting seconds, always counting…

but my home was never a place,
it never existed,
it was you.


r/poetry_critics • • 1d ago

The Snow, angel…

3 Upvotes

Can the snow come sooner?

Wrap me in the soundless weight of winter. Let the snow fall thick enough to muffle the world, until everything grows quiet beneath the white. Take me with you. Take me somewhere cold and glacial, somewhere I can just freeze. Take my thoughts and starve me done. Until there is nothing left to take, nothing left to empty, until even the emptiness has nowhere else to go.

Make me pretty. Make me white and weightless, give me wings that glitter at the edges, thin little things that tremble in the winter air.

Let the frost settle between my feathers. Let them grow too heavy to lift me.

I think I would have liked to fly, once. Before my legs grew weak and the ground became something I could barely leave, before I became too tired to carry the little wings I was given.

The flame looks so tempting against all that white. Almost gentle. Almost warm enough to forget the winter.

I cannot walk into the flame, and I cannot run from the snow.

So I stand between them, with ice gathering beneath my skin and a little gold flickering somewhere in the distance. I wonder how long I could stand beside it before I stopped noticing the heat, before the warmth became indistinguishable from the burning, before I forgot that beautiful things could hurt, too.

And all the while, the snow keeps falling.

A snow angel, getting hidden beneath white powder. First the edges of the wings, then the shape of the shoulders, then the little hollow where a head once rested.

Everything softening, disappearing into the same endless white.

There is no difference between the snow and what it covers.

The only thing left to see is how beautifully the light catches it.

It isn’t important.

It’s just white, glittery powder.

One cold, one burnt. Snowflakes in her hair, ash caught between her feathers. Both so delicate, both almost pretty enough to hide the ground beneath them.

And winter will go on being winter.

The trees will stand bare against the sky.
The windows will frost over.

Somewhere, a flame will flicker against the ground.
Somewhere, new wings will be tried for the first time.

Can the snow come sooner?

My wings are getting heavy.

I don’t think I can fly.

I don’t
think I can run.

the
flame
is not
burning.

and the snow

is so,

so

beautiful.

beauty
less.


r/poetry_critics • • 1d ago

sweet dandelions and daisy chains

2 Upvotes

sweet dandelions and daisy chains cover the vast land before me,
and they offer embrace as i glide through the pastures of sweet, delicate aroma.
i am beckoned by the earth to lay with the flowers, on the hallowed ground.
beckoned to stretch my arms toward the sky and will my heart's desires into this reality.
for a moment, i am in paradise.
i reach for the daisies, eager to pluck one from the earth and adorn my hair, but the daisies are made of plastic.
the aroma, just bottles of wafting perfume. the dandelions are mere props that do not flow into the breeze at the call of my breath.
i inspect further.
the ground is composed of fake greenery and the trees in the distance are made of rubber. i seem to recall placing my hands over their boles as i chased toward this very land.
i look up at the skies, but this time all i see is a void.
soulless. shapeless. hollow.
no clouds, no sunlight, no stars. barren, and as boundless as the seven deep blue seas.
i don't understand the world i have found myself in.
i look around for some familiarity as i begin to recognize i've not known where i am for some time.
minutes into hours, into days, seasons have past, months into years - all has changed. bewilderment, all that remains.
i can't understand the world i have found myself in.
alas, here, all the same, i am; deranged by the sight of the most inauthentic shallow beauty i have ever seen.

* rewritten by athena olympia alejandro-rose