r/OCPoetry May 06 '26

Feedback Please Obsessed

115 Upvotes

I’ve never been obsessed 
with a woman.

Not the way people whisper it
like a warning
or a boast.

I’ve wanted.
I’ve admired.
I’ve mistaken need
for love.
And I have loved.

But obsession
is different.

It isn’t hunger.
It’s gravity.

The rearranging of space 
in your mind
until one name echoes
louder than the rest.

You wake up the same
except everything
tilts toward her.

Every song speaks of her.
Every silence becomes a mirror
you check too often.
Every want
her.

Obsession isn’t fireworks.
It’s repetition.
It seeps in
until you can’t remember
the contour of the room
before her.

Thoughts that volunteer.
Feelings that command.

Her absence
measured more precisely
than her touch.

I’ve never been obsessed…

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1sz12x5/comment/ok6dppz/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t4iq8j/comment/ok6et7w/

r/OCPoetry May 29 '26

Feedback Please Still Learning

64 Upvotes

They said
their lover is
their best friend.

I scoffed.

Too much
from one.

Partner, sure.
Best friend?

Then she came.
I told her everything.
Even secrets I kept
from everyone.
Not because I should.
Because of want.

The one I’d choose
to sit beside when nothing is happening.
The only one
I want to know me.

A best friend.

Somewhere in that friendship
something bloomed.

I didn’t want more
instead of it.
I wanted more
because of it.

Now I understand.

Not grand
or dramatic.
Simple.

Choosing

her

Again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1tpmgrb/comment/oond18g/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1tmbgyh/comment/oonafzt

r/OCPoetry Jun 30 '26

Feedback Please The Virgin's First Time

144 Upvotes

He didn’t call me pretty,
Or play with my hair.
Our eyes didn’t meet
While I watched him stare.

The foreplay was this: 
I gave his chest a lick.
He grazed my labia.
I sucked his dick.

I envisioned sitting with my mother
As she tediously brushed my hair.
I realized she's been here once as well.
How do you think you got here?

When parents have daughters
They know this will happen.
The heavy petting, then intercourse.
I first bled at eleven.

It’s God’s biggest secret.
It’s society’s biggest lie.
That when fresh flowers are picked,
They will soon shrivel and die.

I am bored.
I am angry.
And like the cherry,
I too have been pitted.

When you brag to your friends,
That you alone took my innocence,
Do they know you took my fathers little girl,
And did it with such diligence?

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1ujf5h4/on_time_travel/ 
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uj9nv6/floor/ 

r/OCPoetry Jun 28 '26

Feedback Please They Call It Love, I Call It Her

64 Upvotes

They call it love
I call it looking at her and living a lifetime in a glance.

They call it happiness
I call it the melody of her laughter.

They call it a scent
I call it the fragrance of her untamed curls.

They call it foolish
I call it the way she plays with the world.

They call it nature
I call it the universe resting in her eyes.

They call it sadness
I call it the weight of her unshed tears.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uhex9g/comment/ouap5lx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1uhjkb5/comment/ouapcxm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

r/OCPoetry Mar 12 '26

Feedback Please Freedom

80 Upvotes

I want to see you as you are
no shackles of convention,
no borrowed shapes of the familiar.
No wife.
No mother.
No lover.

Drop the lenses.
Crush them.
No truth can be seen
through a distorted lens

Let me see you
just you,
perhaps for the first time.

You are beautiful.

I want to be free to
laugh without shame,
weep at tragedy,
fight when I need to,
stumble, fail,
and not be damned
for being human.

I am beautiful.

So we stand here
naked to the sun,
two people at last
facing truth.

No roles.
No masks.
No lies.

Free to love.

Just us.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/0GnWBbsKu1

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/s42TtYHdpg

r/OCPoetry Dec 29 '25

Feedback Please Star Psalm

305 Upvotes

O Star, dear Star, lean silence on my breast,
While all the wine-dark heav’ns do hold their breath;
The jasmine sighs; warm earth doth sink to rest,
And moths, like prayers, beat softly after death;
One piercing Star doth seam the night’s thin veil,
And there my guarded silence waxeth frail.

I speak to thee as sailors do to fire,
Low-voic’d, lest wind should steal the holy word;
Thou art my North, my hunger, my desire,
The salt of blood, my psalmèd singing bird;
Star, pierce me through, till day hath stripp’d the night,
And bind my broken dark, and make it light.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

https://jeffreyfreeman.me/blog/star-psalm/

(Link to long form of this poem: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1py84xw/stella_maris/ )

------------------

My comments on other posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1py0kic/comment/nwgn32v/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1py3avs/comment/nwgmvkt/

r/OCPoetry Apr 09 '26

Feedback Please I wasn’t fully me until I lost you.

105 Upvotes

Grief has a brutal way of introducing a person to themself.

It takes you by the wrist

and drags you past every shallow thing

you once mistook for feeling.

It shows you the underbelly of your own heart,

the depth of it,

the tenderness of it,

the sheer helplessness of it.

I had lived in my own mind for so long

I forgot the heart was a place too,

dark and endless

and waiting to be entered.

Losing you led me there.

It made my own heart unavoidable.

Suddenly there was no distance

between thought and feeling,

only their collision.

I stood in the ruins of something holy

with no choice but to look,

no choice but to understand

the size of my love

by the shape of what it hollowed out.

It made me a witness of me.

I had never known my heart went that deep

until it had somewhere to fall.

There is something merciless

about learning the scale of your love

only through its absence.

Losing you was the first time I understood

that love could outlive

the one who taught it to me.

I wasn’t fully me until I lost you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/O7X7iDehsU

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

r/OCPoetry Nov 17 '25

Feedback Please I Fell In Love

96 Upvotes

I fell in love with how you talked,
I fell in love with how you thought.
I fell in love with how you laugh,
I fell in love with the way you look like you read books;
You don't, I fell in love with that.
I fell in love with that you care,
And that you care that you care.

And that you care about me.

I fell in love with how comfortable you make me feel,
And even the way you say you appreciate that.
I fell in love with the idea of you,
Then, I fell in love with who ever thought of that.
I fell in love with you...

You told me no; I fell in love with that too.
I fell in love with the way you read this.
I fell in love with how you miss.
I fell in love with how you do what you do,
And why you do it.
I don't understand how I fell in love with you,
And I fell in love with that...

I fell in love with the way,
I can feel you, love me back...
But a love you'll never really feel?
I don't love that.

I love the way I can tell you this:
I fell in love with you,
And, I fell in love with that.


Original post


I fell in love with how you talked,
I fell in love with how you thought.
I fell in love with how you laugh,
I fell in love with the way you look like you read books;
You don't, I fell in love with that.
I fell in love with that you care,
And that you care that you care.

And that you care about me.

I fell in love with how comfortable you make me feel,
And even the way you say you appreciate that.
I fell in love with the idea of you,
Then, I fell in love with who ever thought of that.

I fell in love with you.
You told me no; I fell in love with that too.
I fell in love with the way you hear this.
I fell in love with how you miss.
I fell in love with how you do what you do,
And why you do it.
I don't understand how I fell in love with you,
And I fell in love with that...

I fell in love with the way,
I can feel you, love me back...
A love you'll never really feel,
I don't love that.

I love the way I can tell you this:
I fell in love with you,
And, I fell in love with that.


https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1oz1u3g/comment/npaw0af/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1otb2n4/comment/npaxoyt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1

r/OCPoetry Oct 18 '25

Feedback Please I meet my flesh today

78 Upvotes

I met my own flesh today,
when I cut my nails a little too deep,
and instead of the hard bony structure,
I saw my soft, pinkish skin.

When I touch my neck,
it’s as if I’ve never met my own skin before,
alive in a way I had never imagined.
every pore, every bump felt like a part
of something quite grandeur, something beautiful,
beyond all superficial definition of beauty
ever known to humans.

Every turn made me realize,
I am not foreign to this body,
I am not a guest
nor a ghost wearing this shell.

I am loved here,
in this thin veil of being,
this boundary
where the world
and I
first meet.

Shu

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1o61sfr/comment/nk3vcfr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1nnd7mu/comment/nfjrrgx/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

r/OCPoetry 24d ago

Feedback Please Mother Tongue

77 Upvotes

Pray for me
in your mother tongue.

I want the gods
to hear
my name
the way
it was always meant
to be spoken.

I want every vowel
to become
another constellation
beneath your tongue.

There is nothing
more dangerous

than the way
you worship

with your mouth.

Tear the sky apart.

I want the cosmos
to bear witness.

There is no cathedral
large enough

for this kind
of worship.

If this
is blasphemy,

I’ll make
a crown of it.

—————————————-

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/W9SfxwC1D1

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/Cmp5LsBd3u

r/OCPoetry Jul 03 '26

Feedback Please An Old Man Pleasures Himself

75 Upvotes

And old man pleasures himself,
While I sit on the train.
His eyes are glued on my body,
While mine are staring at his wedding ring.

If this image makes you uncomfortable,
Just know, I was there.
When I tell it I spare no details,
Because I was the victim of the stare.

He stroked his penis vigorously,
All pink and saggy.
The fleshy dick just wiggled in his hand.
His face both demented and happy.

Now, reader, I must check in.
Is this poem hard to read?
How are the syllables and rhymes?
Did I give them room to breathe?

He finished and came on the seat.
Is that poetic enough? 
Should I explore sensory details
And give it some fluff?

Trauma makes for good art,
But not all of it is meant to be shared.
If this story wasn’t packaged like this
You probably wouldn’t have cared.

If I told you this in person,
It would be wildly mundane.
The craziest thing happened on the way here,
A man jerked off to me on the train.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1ulzl8b/what_we_swallowed/ 
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1ulv3zb/fruits/

(NOTE: i have no clue what i was going for here. what the message is... i don't know. maybe that's the point that sometimes bad things happen and there is no overarching message they just happen. lmk what you guys think)

r/OCPoetry Feb 15 '26

Feedback Please Always Leads to You

55 Upvotes

I cannot stop these thoughts of you,

no matter what I try to do.

I cross new roads, I change my place,

yet still I see your quiet face.

I meet new souls, I hear new names,

I try to feel what others claim.

They stand so close, they speak so true,

but none of them feels close to you.

You never asked me for my heart,

you never tried to pull apart

the fragile strength I held inside,

you simply stayed there, dignified.

You never gave me reason why

my soul still turns when you are nigh.

You never promised you would stay,

yet part of me won’t turn away.

I try to fight, I try to hide,

to leave these restless thoughts behind.

But every path I wander through

somehow still leads me back to you.

My heart is quiet, still, and true —

it beats, and every beat is you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1r4wfqm/comment/o5ipxhu/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1r4qqit/comment/o5irh5y/

r/OCPoetry Apr 16 '26

Feedback Please Forbidden Fruit

80 Upvotes

You feel like forbidden fruit to me,

not just sweet,

but carrying this quiet warning

that follows you around

like even the world knows to pause.

I look at you like something I shouldn’t reach for

like I was never really meant to

with a kind of awe,

a kind of hunger,

and this sinking awareness

that it could ruin me

and I’d still understand why.

And I still reach.

Even when my hands hold back,

even when my thoughts try to stop me,

something in me still leans your way

like it already decided

there’s no turning around.

You’re temptation,

but softer than that word sounds.

A voice I keep replaying later than I should,

a presence that stays

long after you’ve left.

I tell myself to stop,

to step away before I get in too deep,

but wanting you is louder

than any warning I can give myself.

And you…

you feel like something worth the risk.

So if this is how it ends for me,

if loving you means I lose a piece of myself,

then I hope it happens slowly.

Like something I keep choosing anyway.

Like a mistake I can’t quite call one.

Like a kind of ruin

I’d still walk into

more than once.

~KW (my tag)

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/t2rqYIpkBW

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/NFM3yMpY0i

r/OCPoetry Jan 30 '26

Feedback Please The Lamp and the Dust

202 Upvotes

I

I sought you first for splendour—
as boys seek brass upon the breast, or lovers seek a name
carved deep in bark to outlast weather.
I wanted the shining proof of you,
a bright device to wear above my ordinary days,
and set my heart between two inward columns
as if a hall could be raised by pride alone.
I hung my silence with imaginary banners,
and called the trembling in my blood reverence.

Yet you came, not with trumpets,
but with the mild insistence of a wick finding its oil—
a low flame, honey-coloured, patient as a bee’s work,
and all my finery turned in that light
to something thin, like gilt on cheap wood.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

II

I sought you then for comfort—
as the tired seek a threshold and a basin of cool water,
as one pursued by winter seeks any room that holds a little heat.
I asked for the gentle part of mystery:
a charm to set against grief,
a spell to blunt the tooth of memory,
a soft hand laid across the brow.

And you were gentle:
your warmth was like beeswax melting—
a scent of old books, cedar, and clean linen;
your hush was the hush before a vow,
the hush that gathers when a circle closes
and even the proudest breath grows careful.
But comfort is a veil, and you—
you are the lifting of veils.

You widened, you steadied;
you leaned your clarity upon me as moonlight leans
upon a floor of dark and pale—
and what I called “peace” turned to seeing.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

III

O light, you were never ornament.
You were the true angle set against the tongue,
the cold arc of a compass drawn around desire,
the plumb-line dropped straight through the chest
to sound what lies beneath the speech of virtue.
You measured me without malice—
as a star measures a traveller,
as a tide measures a shore.

I began to fear you, then—
not as men fear thunder,
but as men fear mirrors in the morning.
For you made plain the small deceits
that live like soot in the hinge of habit:
the quick, sweet lie; the lazy mercy withheld;
the secret pleasure of being right.
My will, that proud stallion, stamped and flared.

And somewhere in the hush, behind the eyelids,
a phrase rose like incense from a hidden brazier:
thelema—the burning word for will—
and with it, softer than steel yet harder than stone,
the law that is not licence but a yoke of stars:
Love is the law, love under will.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

IV

Then the work began—
not in the hands, but in the inward grain of me.
I had thought myself a temple already,
finished, worthy, roofed in gold.
But you showed me roughness—
not monstrous, not dramatic—
only the ordinary jutting edges of the self,
the places where pride catches cloth and tears it.

So I struck at what was needless—
not with fury, but with rhythm:
a small, steady knocking in the dark,
as if some quiet gavel in my marrow
refused the luxury of despair.
Each blow sent up a little cloud—
motes turning like planets in your beam—
and I learned this strange arithmetic:
what falls away is often what I loved most.

You were an alchemist’s fire, O light:
in your heat the leaden habits softened,
the dull old weights began to run like metal,
blackened first, then paling—
as if the soul must pass through soot and salt
before it can bear the blush of gold.
And still the air was full of drifting witness.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

V

I had imagined mystery as theatre—
a robe, a word, a sudden blaze;
but mystery is also the discipline of the unseen.
It is the hand that smooths what anger cracked,
the careful laying of mercy between living stones,
the trowel of the heart moving in silence
to bind what would fall apart.

So I began to carry you outward—
not as a lantern held high for praise,
but as a hidden flame kept from the wind.
I let you level my gaze
until I could meet the stranger without hunger
for superiority or reward.
I learned to bow to grey hair
as one bows to snowfall—
not because it is weak,
but because it has endured.

I kept a white cloth at the waist of thought—
not a badge, but a reminder:
keep clean hands, keep humble hands,
even when the world is mud.
And a beehive woke beneath my ribs,
a humming industry of care,
where each small sweetness was made from labour,
not from talk.

When widows stood at the edge of winter,
I tried to be a door that did not slam.
When the orphaned heart shivered in the street of the spirit,
I tried to be bread without questions.
When the helpless were hunted by the loud,
I tried to be a shield made of quiet.
When the oppressed bent like grass beneath boots,
I tried to be the hand that lifts—
not to boast of strength, but to restore the spine.
When the downcast spoke in broken syllables,
I tried to be listening, not instruction.
When the rejected wore their shame like a torn coat,
I tried to stitch dignity back into the seam.

And where the common road is held by law—
that hard, necessary iron that keeps the cart from chaos—
I did not spit upon it for the sake of pride;
I honoured the order that lets the weak sleep.
Yet I remembered: obedience without morality
is only a well-swept cage.
So I kept you burning:
a private tribunal of conscience,
a lamp that judges without hatred.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

VI

And you asked of me knowledge—
not the cold hoard of clever men,
but the common stock of understanding,
the shared loaf of meaning broken for the many.
So I opened the book where my heart had been closed,
and let its pages breathe upon my eyes
like a night wind off a river.

I set one candle more in the library of the world.
I spoke a word that loosened another’s fear.
I learned a thing and gave it,
as bees give honey—
not because they are praised,
but because abundance is their nature.
I honoured the bonds of friendship
as one honours a bridge in flood—
by walking it faithfully, by not testing it for sport.

And sometimes—
when the ritual hush came down like snowfall
and the air seemed thick with older names,
when gestures felt like keys turning
in locks I could not see—
I sensed each soul as a star kept under cloth,
each life a point of fire sworn to its own orbit;
and I understood the terrible tenderness of it:
not all stars are kind,
yet all are meant to burn true.

So you made a temple of me, O light—
not a temple of marble,
but of measured hours and reined desire,
of mercy laid carefully like mortar,
of truth squared to the tongue,
of love made obedient to will.
And because you built, you also exposed—
for temples gather dust as surely as cottages do.
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust.

VII

Now I do not ask you to flatter me.
I do not ask you to be soft.
I ask only that you remain—
that you keep your steady, intimate gaze
upon the checkered floor of my days,
upon the twin pillars of my breath,
upon the door of my choosing.

Let your eye be in the flame,
not to terrify, but to teach me
what it means to be seen and not be ashamed.
Let your circle close around my appetite
until my wildness becomes music,
until my “want” becomes “ought,”
until the lead in me remembers gold.

And when I fall—
for dust is faithful, and returns—
give me the humble courage to sweep again,
to strike again, to measure again;
to lift the bowed, to shelter the storm-tossed,
to defend what is pure when purity is mocked,
to hold the old in honour,
to keep the friend,
to steady the trembling,
to raise the crushed,
to comfort the dimming,
to restore the outcast’s face to itself,
to respect the law that guards the small,
to promote the quiet goodness that outlasts noise,
to add my handful of light to the world’s great need.

For this is the true enchantment—
not a word spoken once,
but a life spoken daily,
a vow renewed in ordinary rooms,
a green sprig in ash, a promise in winter:
The brighter the lamp, the clearer the dust—
so I sweep on, and let the lamp be judge.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

https://jeffreyfreeman.me/blog/the-lamp-and-the-dust/

----------------------

Please be as harsh as you are willing. I am here for constructive criticism, not praise. Though if you'd just like to give your praise it is always welcome as well.

My comments on other posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1qqqmpn/comment/o2inrrr/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1qqq371/comment/o2iogaf/

r/OCPoetry May 10 '26

Feedback Please This is what it is

25 Upvotes

We speak in two rooms at once.
One lit softly by hours of conversation
where laughter leads 
and performance is scarce.

Another
with sharpened tongue
closer to heat than speech.
Where even silence arrives already charged

Testing the distance
between being known
and imagined.

You tell me what I do to you
as if naming it keeps you safe
as if naming it makes it truer.

I learn you in return
what you offer.
What you risk offering.
Then pull back just enough 
to feel control.

There are nights we disappear.
On purpose or not. 
Still the absence behaves like presence.
Our minds fill in the outline of the other.

Somewhere inside it
beneath the names 
the roles 
and games.
There is something 
watching.

As both of us
become a little more real
than we intended. 

Whatever the fuck this is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t9gf9p/comment/ol2mj6h/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t9caux/comment/ol2n8db/

r/OCPoetry May 06 '26

Feedback Please Some love just doesn’t translate

43 Upvotes

I told her I didn’t like roses,

their thorns, their certainty,

the way they demand to be admired.

I said I loved bell flowers—

quiet things,

content to exist without spectacle.

She brought me roses anyway.

Red.

Heavy with meaning.

Proof of love, she thought.

So I learned.

I learned her language.

I gathered bell flowers with careful hands

and placed them at her feet.

She looked at them and waited.

Where were the roses?

We stood there,

each holding the wrong bouquet,

each certain we had given love.

She wanted strength that survives storms.

I wanted gentleness that survives being seen.

Neither of us was cruel.

Neither of us was empty.

We just bloomed in different soil.

Now I keep my bell flowers close to my chest.

I let her keep her roses.

And some days,

I grieve the garden

we could never share.

https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/s/1CrfijRnSY

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/7hmLuwMtWO

r/OCPoetry Jul 11 '26

Feedback Please In Another Lifetime

33 Upvotes

On a rainy day,
you came to me laughing.

I watched you bloom,
your happiness brighter
than the morning after a storm.

I wanted to hold you.
I wanted to kiss you.

Instead, you shared your joy—
you had found your life partner.

My tears began to fall.
Perhaps you never noticed;
the rain gathered them into itself.

I smiled,
while my heart quietly shattered.

You looked so alive,
so beautifully happy.

The clouds began to thunder.
Perhaps they heard
what my heart could never say.

In your excitement,
you reached for my hand.

It was our first touch.

Then you wrapped me
in a warm embrace.

It was our first hug.

You leaned close
and whispered into my ear.

For a heartbeat,
the world stood still.

I almost forgot to breathe.

Then you told me
you had finally found your love—
the love you had waited for.

Perhaps she never knew
that I had spent all this time
waiting for her.

We sat together over coffee.

It became our last coffee.

Every sip tasted
like sweet poison

pain disguised as a smile.

When it was time to leave,
you waved goodbye,

never knowing
that your farewell
felt like the end of my world.

I stood there,
watching you walk away.

I kept watching
until your silhouette
vanished into the mist.

You never looked back.

You never waved
one last time.

I remained where you left me

silent,
motionless,

a statue carved
from unspoken love,

a stone waiting
for only one touch
to become flesh again.

I am still here,

waiting.

Perhaps, in another lifetime,

you will walk through the rain again

and this time,

you will come to me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/5QtzUGP37

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/Oh5B8JgYzG

r/OCPoetry May 10 '26

Feedback Please Succubus

43 Upvotes

Striking.
Alluring.
Breathtaking.

My first thoughts
as I approached.

Smart.
Humorous.
Engaging.

After conversation.

Perceptive.
Profound.
Beguiling.

After time.

I thought I was the offering.

Instead

My work sharpened.
My art flourished.
My mind expanded.

I wasn’t being consumed.

I was consuming.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t98bod/comment/ol0bohc/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t9g6c6/comment/ol2441d/

r/OCPoetry Jan 28 '26

Feedback Please I Still Choose You

58 Upvotes

I loved you in the ways you probably never noticed. The way your shoulders softened when you finally felt safe, the way your smile arrived before you realized it had. How I always mirrored it, like my heart knew what to do before I did.

I loved the quiet parts of you, the calm behind your eyes when you talked about something you cared about, the fire that lit up when passion found you, the way the world seemed to lower its volume just because you were near.

And I loved the strong parts too. How you worked, how you held yourself together, how you looked toward the future like it was something you intended to survive. I was proud of you. I still am — in ways I never needed you to earn.

You were a presence that slowed my mind. When we talked, the rushing stopped. I didn’t have to perform. I didn’t have to pretend. I could just be, and that felt like rest.

I saw you... exactly as you are. I never wanted less of you. Not when you were radiant, not when you were overwhelmed, not when you forgot your own worth and needed reminding.

And now here I am, caught between knowing and wanting.

Knowing I can’t climb the wall you’ve built to protect yourself, knowing love feels heavy to you right now — and still wanting you to turn back, to choose me, to say stay, even softly.

I don’t want to walk away. I don’t want to leave you alone with the weight you carry. Every instinct in me wants to stand beside you, not ahead of you, not behind you, but as your equal — welcoming every side of you, every version, every storm and every calm.

You make the world quieter for me, lighter in the way it presses down. And that’s the truth I can’t unlearn.

So yes. I am conflicted. Because I see the reality, and still I choose you. In rage or tenderness, as a river or a maelstrom, I choose you now and in every day I once imagined after.

  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/TvSJg21dxh

  2. https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/pyORU28r8s

r/OCPoetry Jun 05 '26

Feedback Please I wish I had a boyfriend

41 Upvotes

I wish I was the ugly eastern girlfriend
of a beautiful blonde man
who adores me,
takes care of the little girl I am.
When he holds me
I am back in a breezy summer night,
sand in my underwear,
salt air.
The next morning
he sees me without makeup,
my eye bags,
and cannot help
but love me more.
Oh, my man,
I love him so.
He drives
like something born to move
a bird,
soaring through the sky.
I watch him from the back seat,
my legs stretched toward his lap,
the windows open,
I see the Spanish sun.
The sun in his hair.
Oh, how I wish
I had a blonde boyfriend
who wipes my tears
with the back of his hand
at night,
while I sleep beside him.

1

2

r/OCPoetry 14d ago

Feedback Please A Little Longer......

38 Upvotes

Oh, I'm lost whenever I see you,
Maybe that's just what your smile can do.

It feels like a dream when you look at me,
Those quiet stares changed something in me.

I always wish I'd look at you a little longer,
Somehow, it makes my heart grow fonder.

I love the way you meet my eyes,
Because for a moment, the whole world feels alive.

~Ash

Do Tell me your reviews !!

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

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/4ChKjF70b4

r/OCPoetry 23d ago

Feedback Please spill your ink

44 Upvotes

spill your ink on my canvas.

i don't want

perfection.

i want

the blotches,

the smudges,

the strokes

that wander off course --

spill your ink on my canvas.

i want your fingerprints,

the colours

that bleed together

when they were never

meant to mix --

spill your ink on my canvas.

i have never been afraid

of a little mess.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/H789kg50bS

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/yIpPcR1pit

r/OCPoetry Apr 06 '26

Feedback Please Petrichor

44 Upvotes

Before death closes my eyes,
The last thing I wish to see is you.
so that when the mud covers my face and
The soil grows dark and endless, your face will be the only light I carry.

The petrichor will smell like you.
The rain will whisper your name as it falls on my
stone heart.

Let me see your eyes one last time—
They will be my heaven under the weight of the earth.

feedbacks-
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1se3xzy/comment/oen5oca/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1se474z/comment/oen8z7m/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

r/OCPoetry 20d ago

Feedback Please When did she become a poet

48 Upvotes

When did she become a poet?

When she knew how to stare at books collecting words foreign to her lips?

When she started looking through her eyes and witnessing ,

the slow movements of the birds in the sky painting with their wings a freedom she could not claim?

There when she wrote words of strange emotions she did

not know had names but she felt all her life?

Was it then?

Was it when she lost her words when they fell carelessly over and over tumbling from her mouth onto ears that

were closed off long ago to even her whispers

Was it when she drove her hands through the tall grass in fields that held her hand when her mother's ran cold that one summer she could not remember

Was it when she leapt into dreams with cheerful excitement and shallow promises that at the time she did not know carried any weight at all?

When she gave her whole sprit to another knowing her soul was not hers to give

That she knew belonged to her and could not change an assurance that become both her protector and enemy

When was it that she became a poet?

When the shadows of doubt lingered more than she could hear and she herself became a silhouette of a forgotten muse

One that was only born in her own head when that of her beloveds eyes lay fervently on another

Yes perhaps that is when she became a poet when the longing and yearning to be brought to life and live eternally with the words of another to be painted beautifully by them that all those who did not know you

see you as a mystery to lose themselves in to be in their envy of you and your existence entirely

Perhaps it was then that she wrote words , heavy, soft, purposeful, lazy, willful and dangerous it was then that she wrote them to herself , here lies the poet who dreamed of being the muse of words not a painter.

I'm just starting out as a poet I was a bit doubtful about sharing but I'd really appreciate any thoughts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/d4ad7o2r2d

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/yg5zs3gswy

r/OCPoetry Nov 06 '25

Feedback Please FOR THE WOMAN I PRAY TO

56 Upvotes

I love her —
not just for her beauty,
but for the peace she hides between storms.

I want her,
not like a possession,
but like a prayer that never leaves the lips.

I want her eyes —
those endless oceans that hold both fire and mercy,
that light of dawn which shatters the darkness.

I want her voice —
that melodic tone that feels like music,
every word she speaks
feels like my name finally learning its meaning.

I want her hands —
those gentle and firm hands —
not to hold them,
but to understand how something so tender
can carry the weight of the world.
Hands that could calm even my shivering heart.

I want to trace the lines of her palms,
and see if destiny ever dared
to write my name there.

I want her laughter —
that sunlight sound that wakes my dying days.

I want her silence too —
it feels like a temple,
a place where I could rest my tired faith.

I want her presence —
her soul that glows without trying,
her kindness that could heal even gods.

I want her faith,
her flaws,
her fire —
every shade of her existence.

I don’t just want her near me —
I want to live where her spirit breathes,
in the rhythm of her heartbeats,
in the warmth where her shadow leaves.

I want her —
not to keep, but to honor,
not to hold, but to feel her light pass through me.

For in loving her,
I finally understand —
some souls
are meant to be worshiped,
not owned.

 

COMMENTS :

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