They tell me I must choose a side,
To plant my feet on left or right,
As if the soul is black or white,
With oceans deep and chasms wide.
They look for fences I must sit,
A halfway point, a broken line,
But both the shadow and the shine
Are spaces where my heart will fit.
I see the grace in feminine,
The soft, the fierce, the gentle glow,
And find the warmth in masculine,
The steady hands, the strength they show.
It isn't greedy, halves, or parts,
Nor wandering eyes that cannot stay.
It is the capacity of hearts
To love in more than just one way.
I am the bridge, I am the sea,
Complete, unbroken, and defined.
No partial truth, no divided mind—
Whole in my own infinity.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
142,257 Literary Works • 677,096 Reviews
As a frying pan I really enjoyed this poem, the flow is chefs kiss and I dream of having a poem this memorizable
Hey there, welcome to YWS! The Rebel here for a short review!
First Impressions: As your first poem on this website, this was so good! The imageries were outstanding and I loved the ABAB-pattern. While you could have broken the 20 lines down into five stanzas, I think this also works perfectly fine. The cadence was good and it sounded like a chant of sorts. While you don't follow any specific meter, the lines flowed naturally for almost every line.
Critiques: While the lines flowed naturally, there were some parts which kinda stood out like:
I feel like the word 'capacity' impeded the natural cadence of the poem so far. The four syllables in ca-pa-ci-ty have different stress patterns -- the poem as it is forces the reader to stress on 'city' while the natural intonation is to stress on 'caPA', if one were to read it in a rhythmic cadence. If your intent was to point out that specific line, that's fine. However, I would personally suggest something like 'it is the honest truth of hearts' or 'it is just the way of hearts' to make it sound more natural -- but once again, it's your choice as the poet because it is okay as it is.
Themes: As a bisexual myself, I loved the poem. The imagery of contrasts is startlingly beautiful because I never really thought about bisexuality like that myself. I also like how you dealt with the distrust against bisexuality even by some members (a vocal minority tbh) of the LGBTQ+ community with the lines about wandering eyes and greed. While dark and light, right and left, black and white might be a bit of poetic exaggeration -- I love how succinct the ideas of the bridge, the sea, halfway point, masculine and feminine, and the holistic nature in general have been presented.
You could also say almost the same about pansexuality, but the difference is that femininity and masculinity are non-factors for attraction while in bisexuality they may or may not be a factor -- which is also distinguished in your poem. So that's also awesome.
Final thoughts: Once again, I loved your poem and I would love to read more of your poems and works. Happy writing and good day!
Yours sincerely,
The Rebel