#And Then, Our Eyes Met Again

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i swore you belonged
to the quieter tenses—
the then, the once, the finished.

i taught my eyes restraint,
my thoughts obedience,
and engulfed myself
in a momentary illusion.

yet fate, as careless as ever,
let our eyes meet
and in that unguarded second
i learned i had never truly left.

the world smeared itself into nothing,
a tired cliché, yes—
but it tore me open anyway.

my limbs obeyed and moved on autopiliot,
while my mind, betraying as ever,
knelt for a return.

we both paused,
you, smiling,
unaware of the wreckage you caused inside me
i, transfixed
in the unbearable gravity of you.

how could one be
this cruelly beautiful;

those wandering curls,
that enchanting smile—
how does someone so pure
still manage to make my breath hitch?

god, if only i could confess
how impossible it is to look away,
when every cell calls for your name.

i wish i could adore you
as i once did—
without caution,
without reason,
without my eyes betraying
what my mouth refuses.

the hallways are haunted.
they watch me hesitate,
wondering if escape
could loosen memory's grip
until i cannot touch them anymore.

everywhere i go,
there's a scent of you
that follows,
like a lost puppy
begging me to come back.

the field—
where our beginning unraveled
with a chaotic confession.

the water cooler—
where your arms decided
i was not meant to leave.

the hallway—
where your hand found mine
because crowds frightened me,
because even then
you embodied safety.

i long for the way you looked at me
like you had never known another.

i long for my name on your lips
like it was the only word worth holding.

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i had believed myself incapable
of love, of being chosen by it—
until you arrived,
and proved a kind of tenderness
i believed was just myth.

you became the final destination
my thoughts keep returning to without consent,
unwilling, in a way i can no longer undo,
a habit rehearsed too well to abandon.

and it aches me,
knowing that return is forbidden.
my throat tightens,
my voice falters,
salt threatens to leave,
as i write you into this poem;

i let you go—
and the world has not absolved me since.

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cloud wave
# lucid token i swore you belonged to the quieter tenses— the then, the once, the finished. i...

"i swore you belonged
to the quieter tenses—" is a great line, however the rest of the poem is lacking. you oscillate between remorse and reverence -- the present and the past -- but it just doesn't add up? The idea of remorse and grief needs to be well-established (and ideally would have a stanza or two of its own) to become potent enough to stand on its own, and then and only then could you start describing the reverence of love.

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I feel like the poem needs to be completely rewritten in order to achieve that desired effect. keep the first line, but try re-writing everything else

lucid token
# cloud wave "i swore you belonged to the quieter tenses—" is a great line, however the rest ...

i think part of the disconnect might come from the fact that the poem follows the events exactly as they unfolded for me, both chronologically and emotionally. i wasn’t structuring remorse and reverence as separate phases; they arrived simultaneously to me in that moment. the oscillation isn’t meant to contrast, but sort of like reflect how the present collided in my mind with the past all at once

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the remorse and reverence aren’t staged they coexist in real time, which is why the poem resists clean separation between grief and love

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i do get where you're coming from, but rather than crafting it as a structured emotional progression, i wanted to portray it as it happened, which is why the emotions overlapped

mint goblet
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if i'm being honest i can absolutely see myself in this poem is beautiful

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mint goblet
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mint goblet
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thats not okay tho 😭

mint goblet
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Oh well 🥲

plain rain
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Beautiful and relatable, my heart ached while reading. Hope the boys in the chat will be okay 🫂 I agree with Finest that the "tenses" line is very strong, maybe you could reference it at the very end to resolve and provide some additional structure? E.g a final resignation that she's the once, the now, the ever.

I would maybe also reconsider the description of her beauty; the feelings that led to this poem are deeper than physical attraction, so imo it's a bit jarring to only learn that she's beautiful. Something about her leaves the author feeling fundamentally incomplete, but this is not explored

lucid token
lucid token
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i do explore a little more than just physical attraction though in the second half, when i talk about the longing and the rest of the poem that follows

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plain rain
plain rain
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@normal summit

normal summit
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I like the first stanza or two quite a lot, the rest felt a bit …. dishonest? Forced?

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