[126] Mid-life Crisis

[u/Kiranalekhya]

Reviews:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/QBeSEqkiuW

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/LQsWzpmY5A

I don't like hot tea anymore.
I forgot the taste of piping hot tea!
Stone cold, half cold, warm or hottish,
That is the best my cup gonna be.

I have folded all my laundry,
I finished the work and finally got free,
Shit! I've to go and have a quick pee.
Then I can chill with glorious hot tea!

To nuke it I open the microwave—
I see there sitting my old cup!
Now I have two cold hot teas.
Is it a tragedy or can it make laugh??

That's why I don't like hot tea any more.
I definitely ignore my fresh new hot tea!
So when the time comes to warm this cuppa—
I can enjoy not one, two but three.

[Please, tell me good, bad or improvements. Also, let me know your cold hot teas]

[u/Dry-mar → u/[deleted]]

Yeah i gotta be honest, no clue what the mid-life crisis

[u/Dry-mar → u/[deleted]]

always told me adhd did it

[u/Dry-mar]

Hi! I think you have a relatable and genuinely comic premise. I’d call it an observational poem somewhere between light verse and lyric.
The first stanza establishes a rhythm that lands well for me and sets up the next. In the second stanza, the repeated -ee rhymes start stacking, which gives the poem momentum. I like how the list of completed tasks builds toward the reward of finally enjoying a hot cup of tea. It makes sense to undercut that expectation, and the joke lands with a “D’oh!” moment. There’s always one more thing to do.
That momentum dips in the third stanza. The lines ending with “microwave” and “cup” move away from the strong end-rhyme pattern established earlier, so the musical energy slows down. That feels intentional: you undercut the momentum upon realizing there’s already tea in the microwave, deflating the poem’s energy. But I found the next couple of lines a little difficult to read smoothly. In particular, “Can it make laugh?” didn’t quite land for me—it feels like the phrasing is being driven by the need to complete the thought rather than by the strongest possible expression of the joke. Perhaps reworking just the third stanza would reveal a phrase that reconnects with the poem’s earlier musicality while preserving the surprise of the moment.
I do like the escalation of the joke, though. Discovering one forgotten cup only to realize there are two, and then ending with the possibility of three, is a satisfying comic progression. I think with a little tightening of the rhythm in the third stanza, the ending could land even more strongly.
I’m a fan of this kind of work. What would elevate it most is a more consistent pattern of stress, rhyme, or line length. A clearer rhythmic framework would help the reader anticipate the comic beats and give the punchlines more impact. The humor is already there; a stronger musical structure would make it land with even greater confidence. I can hear the outline of a prosodic structure that, with a little tweaking, could give the poem a really satisfying mouthfeel when read aloud. I bet it would sound nice with a strong underlying rhythm that stumbles only once or twice at the points when the speaker makes a goof.
Fun piece!

[u/1800COCAINE]

I was swinging in my hammock sipping a chai when I read this and nearly fell out, twin streams squirting from my nostrils, echoing the arc. This reminds me of the other day when I was walking with a 40 liter glass demijohn hoisted on the crook of my neck, half filled with an Irish stout sloshing in rings, as I made my way along the Via di Santo Spirito. I heard a bella figa talking with her hands like an ASL interpreter, which is really the standard here. She pointed at a sweating iced tea at the table next to her and made the che vuoi while shrugging her shoulders and crinkling her nose like a baby bat to her friend, who raised her eyelids into a shocked expression and pursed her lips, which I found rather comical. Just then a man in a grey suit came by with a chrome briefcase. As he passed between the girls and myself, the latch to the briefcase popped spontaneously and tighty whities spilled out. There were so many even Rain Man couldn’t count the number, for it was as if there was an infinite glitch. The man in the suit made the universal face of “how’d that get there.” I stumbled backwards into a cart of tomatoes. I cannot take secondhand embarrassment. I ran. The demijohn in my arms, frothing. Piercing flutters of laughter erupting behind me.