do you believe me now?

a poem i wrote about a friend who accidentally said things that made me insecure <3

party lights flicker as my vision dims

words drop like acid on my skin

sinking in, i start to feel sick

the shame you spilled always sticks.

i’m happy you’ve never been burned before.

introduce me to a stranger

tell an “inside” joke that left me exposed

then wonder why i left without a word

i’d rather be the one hurting.

when your lips begin to part 

it’s either a black hole or a spark

but your shoulder is softer

than your words are sharp

and your laughter so sweet 

when it’s not cutting deep

so i believe you didn’t mean 

what you said to me

the truth was never fitting for you anyways.

Reviews

[Green]

Please ignore our resident bully. Despite his propensity to word vomit he never manages to actually say anything worthwhile.
Anywhos, enough of him since he’s hardly worth it. This feels conflicted but from the context provided in the description that’s fitting. It’s relatable because of that internal struggle and you could feel that happening here like you were sitting in your head watching in the moment.
I like to think the final line can have a double meaning since the writer may be consciously lying to themselves as well as being unsure if their friends words were meant to be taken so seriously.

[lilypad]

thank u so much!! i def tried to make the last line have a double meaning like that, plus the line “i’d rather be the one hurting” could mean “I’d rather be doing the action of hurting” or “I’d rather be in a state of hurt”. anyways thank u for reading and reviewing!

[Kiana]

wow, I really like this. you caught my attention immediately with "acid," I felt the hurt through your wording.

[lilypad]

thank u so much!

[JayG]

I hate to break it to you, but the kind of poem you posted is often called a Dismal Damsel poem, usually written by a teen disappointed in love. High school lit mags are filled with them.

Here's the problem with that kind of poetry—and it's unrelated to talent. This is you talking about you, and things meaningful to you, for which the reader has zero context. So, when you read it, it's filled with meaning, and recalls situations and events.

But...your reader comes to poetry to be entertained. And there's not a lot that's entertaining about,
"Woe is me....Unhappy as can be...my life is dark...there is no spark...ad nauseam.

So instead, take your emotions and make them the reader's. Learn to use the poet's superpower: With no more than the words you choose, and their placement, you can make people you'll never meet weep, laugh, and feel all the emotions that you care to...if, you take the time to learn the tricks they've been developing and refining for centuries. And as an added bonus, the act of writing becomes more fun. And, since you'll be the only one in class who truly knows how to write poetry, your friends will think even your lousy ones are brilliant. 🤣

So...grab a copy of Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook: https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

It's filled with little surprises and gems. And for prosody and metrical poetry, jump over to Amazon and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry's, the Ode Less Traveled. He will amaze you with things about the flow of words that you use every day but never notice.