Not a man
I wasn’t a man because I wouldn’t touch you
Your flesh burned my skin
I wasn’t a man because I didn’t want to fuck you
Neither of us could be ready for that
You said I looked like your brother
I understood.
Posted Nov 17, 2022, 11:36 PM UTC
As one of the shortest poems on here, it sure packed a lot of emotions. I read hurt and anger and a thinly veiled attempt at being understanding of something that hurt?
I often struggle with my own poems being short, and I never know how to keep my flow going or how to keep writing, I wonder if you struggle with the same thing as well?
I absolutely do! I don’t have much experience writing poetry, and I don’t know many of the rules to it.
I don’t think there are “rules” or ones that I care about at least. I just wish i could keep going with the flow.
I totally agree!
Hate when people tell us what a man is. I can get this. Nice poem, short but effective. I believe I got the message correct :)
Man or woman, the gender doesn't matter but hate it because you aren't defined by others' opinions
Of course. But there seems to be a bigger push that people don't really recognize towards men and being manly. Not crying, sole provider, not good with kids, etc.
Yeah, society doesn't really care for us. There has been a change in attitudes for women and lqbtq community, but the attitudes towards men have remained largely the same, if not gotten worse over time
I love how short but impactful this is. There’s a lot of mystery there—makes me wonder what story lies behind it. I love it though! Makes me think.
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Greetings.
What is a man? There's so many answers to this it's enough to write a bearded Bible with extended volumes. Or, cleanshaven. Or, well, you get the idea. This idea of someone not being a "man" because they didn't do this or that or even the phrase "be a man" itself is thoroughly whipped.
So, coming from a perspective of ingesting huge amounts of text - not just poetry - it comes off as stale and overdone. This plain, telling language is dead on arrival. Mind you, clichés are not necessarily a thing that need to be avoided in writing. Many popular works are full of clichés. But, it's the manner in which they're executed that make them interesting or fresh.
This needs life injected into it. Who is the speaker? Who is this "you" person? What defines their relationship outside of simply fucking? Where are we? What defines the setting/place? A million questions exist without answer.
That's the burden of being vague and open ended in writing - it's uninteresting and devoid of creativity. What will you do to make your reader care outside a baseline understanding?
Thanks.
Lots of emotion but I don't quite understand some of this without context for which I will not ask, thank you for your vulnerability.
-Lyn the BloodyChainDancer
you repeat some variation of "not a man" four times in a seven-line poem. what you could do is change the title. the title needs to cut a new facet of the poem, especially since it (the poem) is so lacking in context. you could make the title the "what" or "when" of this story. also, i think that you either need to commit to "your flesh burned my skin" by adding fiery imagery in other lines (but that's overdone innit?) or you could modify the imagery in that line since as it is it's like a stray line. "you said I looked like your brother" now this is also so random. first it seemed the speaker wouldn't touch "beloved" because their flesh burned speaker's skin, and now you're adding a whole new "conflict" in the line before the last! this isn't a bad poem by any means, i totally appreciate the stance against "be a man!!"--but as it is the poem's simply uncoordinated/erratic and requires a little bit of context. thanks for posting!
I love the simplicity combined with the grief and fury behind the short lines