pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes

I love how poignant this is. Just a snapshot of an interaction. There's so much tension in so few lines. I appreciate that. I think the adjective choices really help drive that tension between comfortable and uncomfortable. Also I like how you split the lines "four times before the bright orange flame engulfs our little corner/of someone else's back porch." The "bright" flame and "our" corner feel comfortable and familiar, but then it turns out it's not actually their space and I'm back to being uncomfortable.

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I would actually take out the line "oh god, uncomfortably close." In my opinion, you've done such a great job of building the tension naturally up until that point that you don't even need to bluntly point out that it's uncomfortable. The feeling is already there and implied by the previous lines. Just a thought.

I like this, it's a nice slice-of-a-moment kind of poem. I'm unsure of what to feel until the end; whether or not "his" feelings are reciprocated, is this a couple or two friends. It is a concrete scene, yet has ambiguity.

The sentiment is nice, but the 'punchline' (to borrow a term from comedy) is missing here or at least misplaced. It's hard to put a finger to, but the timing is off.

pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes

This is a nice line, you should lean into that! Tighten up the rest of the poem by trying to condense the following lines after that into the fewest possible you can manage. Try to create a sense of flow between images in a line instead of over so many, because when you're doing this - at least for me - the poem becomes almost weightless. After you figure that out, it might be a good idea to shift the 'pretty girls' line either to the very front or very end of the poem. That's totally up to you, but where you put it affects the flow of your poem. At the start, it's a punch you can elaborate on further. At the end, it's a nice line to wrap it up. Either way, redraft and redraft, but build around that line. This can definitely create something really nice.

I think you've done a great job of allowing the reader to drop in as a fly on the wall here. Outside of the line "oh god, uncomfortably close", you've left the subject's thoughts and feelings on the interaction largely ambiguous (even the reply, "is that so?" is quite open - is she flirting back? Is she expressing intrigue, or nonchalance? Or is she just on the spot and unsure of what to say?), allowing the reader to feel they are experiencing this interaction for themselves, in that we are not really told how to feel. I think you would get a range of responses to this from different readers, some interpreting it as a steamy encounter, others as an unwelcome and awkward advance. And let's be honest, most of the time these situations are a bit of both.

The use of familiar iconography (bic, marlboro, the universal memory of smoking around a table on someone's back porch) really adds to the accessible 'drop-in' nature of the poem that I mentioned above.

I think I agree with the below comment about the 'uncomfortably close' line, as I've mentioned it is the only line that really gives away the subject's feelings. However I would opt for altering rather than removing it - perhaps changing it to something more ambiguous like "he leans in to me / disconcertingly close". This keeps the tension of the line without moving it out of the grey area which is what makes this poem so alluring.

All in all, great job! I'm a fan

I may be reading way too deep into this poem but my understanding of this poem is that it is a large metaphor for stealing the credit for something. I think this because it reminded me of how people would act during let's say a school project, your group members say well let me do this one thing (pretty girls don't light there own cigarettes) and they "try" but they don't actually do anything useful, they repeat this until they can finally finish something that is worthwhile to the project (this is when the other person is using the lighter) then when the project is completed you have to give them equal credit even though they did basically nothing (takes MY cigarette between his teeth) once again I could be reading into this too much but I think it is a pretty good metaphor. I also think you did a great job expressing this if you planned to do so, most importantly though, it was fun read. Good job.

You can feel how genuinely uncomfortable the speaker feels in this interaction. It's a minimalistic kind of poem which I am a big fan of. The visuals that are given are clear and distinct yet not to hard to create in your head. Overall, great job on this!

I like the simplicity of it, and the moment captured. I feel like I'm hovering over the interaction, I can feel the cold air and the electricity between the two. I'm such a sucker for these little blips in time where the moment is momentous in its own way. The sweet spots that make life worth writing poetry, stories, and music about. I think this flows well and I look forward to reading more of your work!

This has given me a glimpse of a moment between two people, it's simple and direct which I like. The countdown "one two three four times" creates such tension, followed by comfort "our little corner". It's very ambiguous, I want to know what is going on inside her head and how she is reacting to him. He's grinning, smiling, assuring but her side of things is unknown

" he plucks the bic from the frostbitten table"

This line grabbed me. I had a strong visual image and felt the choice of using the lowercase for "he" was a good tone setter.

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I really enjoy how you were able to pin down a small interaction in this piece. This is where my one critique comes in. I would love to see the reaction of the narrator at the end after the "he" of the story leans in. The image you chose to end with is strong though, so this might be a bit selfish on my part.

The way you describe this intimate moment is superb. You leave no detail out, down to how many tries it takes to light the lighter. I would have loved to have heard more about how you were feeling in that moment, what it aroused in you, rather than just describing the moment itself, but maybe that is all you wanted to share. Great write.

I have spent the last 5-ish years saying pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes to almost everyone attempting to light a cigarette around me. I love the line. Love the title.

Not in love with using the word bic (just don't like how it sounds) and I like the word "spits" in reference to the sparking. ("before the spark spits flame in our little corner")?

One day my poems I post on here will be as intimate as this one is. I love it.

Not sure if this is kosher for this sub but op made me think of something while reading this and here seems as appropriate a place as any

A response

Instagram photo

As smug as you where in highschool

Posed

With a skinny menthol at risk

Between deliberately parted lips

Captioned

'Petty girls don't light there own cigarettes'

And beneath that

A friend I hadn't seen in years

Saying you must get tired

Of lighting your own cigarettes

This reminds me of my dearly departed husband so, so, so much. I absolutely love this and have revisited it a few times. I am very emotionally biased but your writing really helps me rebuild my memory and I can feel the exhilaration and anxiety, that wonderful tension. Anyways, thank you for sharing, I love this.

This is fantastic. I can almost feel myself in the chilled air watching this interaction.

It’s short, visual, and adorable. I love it. A perfect snapshot of the moment. This reads like the perfect meet-cute in a shitty rom-com, and I mean that in the best way possible.

My friends and I used to say that same phrase to each other whenever one of us would bum a light from another, so that’s what caught my eye initially. But I like this one more.

I'd love to see this within a collection of poems to see where these two characters go after this encounter. Where do they cross paths again? Did she know him before or after this. I love the snapshot and have so many questions!

I'd also add some more imagery - think about the 5 senses and how you can incorporate them into this.
"mitten clad fingers" is also a great line and frost bitten table - think of more like this to describe the setting/people.

Nice work though!

I love it!

What I'm seeing is two young people out on the porch at someones house party for a smoke. They're just meeting and there's some flirtatious tension, and boom, right at the end the guy playfully calls her ugly by taking her cigarette! (i.e, She's not pretty, so she doesn't get her cigarette lit for her after all) but it's good humored so in the moment would come off as fun teasing and not mean.

Good job, Made me grin too.

I really like this piece. Think won't be very helpful, as I don't exactly have criticism or anything. But I liked your imagery, I think you set the scene well, with just a few words I was able to build a metal picture of two people on a backporch, a houseparty behind them, all the lights lit, but its quite, the snow absorbing the sound. At least that's what I pictured. But maybe I extrapolated a lot from "mitten clad fingers" and "frostbitten table"... Great work and please keep writing!

I like how condensed this is. I agree that it perhaps needs more of a "punchline" to drive the point home. But, perhaps, you don't want this to have a clear point. It's difficult to know how the speaker feels from these lines, and maybe that's an effect you want to preserve. Possibly, the ambiguity is due to the fact that she doesn't know how to feel.