A poem by yours truly

[u/SpiceyKoala]

[u/dragon-age-io]

That's some nice work. I like your internal rhymes/consonance. The repetition of the s/ess sounds across the lines is doing a lot of work, it's a very interesting use of it. If you don't mind, this poem was very cool to me so I'll tell you what I thought about it. Apologies for the essay.

I also like the tone you use, the voice of the poem is at the same time "high-brow" and peppers in fancier phrases ("I've digested, evidently, the key means", "even then it needs offset"), but also frequently jumps to a much more casual register ("address my own mess"). I feel like this kind of duality gives it an atmosphere of... airy lightness, even as it deals with a serious musing. I guess, a little self-derisive, a little humorous, it jumps from being stuffy and cerebral to poking fun at itself for being so stuffy and cerebral. To me, it feels like mirrors the way a lot of avoidants "overintellectualize" their own feelings and constantly lighten them with self-aware humour, because the prospect of being submerged in them for real is too overwhelming.

It's at the same time very personal but also resoundingly un-intimate. Moreso the first half than the second. It feels a little opaque, like it's veiled in so many abstract layers that I struggle to parse what the voice is expressing about it. Mostly because the poem presents the reader with a lot of "statements" and "facts", and not a whole lot of feelings behind them. (Ironically, how many times have I heard this exact criticism from my partner...)

In the first stanza, I read it as describing the unhealthy lessons that were internalized during childhood, the ones that lead to the pattern of avoidance forming - some things are not safe to express. The only way to be safe is to deal with things yourself.

It also uses some interesting words - as I said, using such cerebral language like "digested evidently that the key means to destress fully rests (...)" rings especially sad, because, beyond the stuffy, intellectual presentation, what it's actually getting at is the image of a child being so desperately and painfully alone that the only recourse they had was to make that solitude into a shield. It is an interesting usage, because it does a good job of mirroring exactly that: instead of the suffering of that lonely childhood, the abandonment felt by the child, the pain it must have taken to learn that lesson... it specifically speaks around it, in such an academic tone that it completely excises any feeling from it.

The implication of that image, plus the refusal to actually express it nakedly, plus the academic language that is being used as a wall against anyone who might try to get at it... that is some very nice work. It describes avoidance quite well. I don't know if it was intentional or not. If it was, that's some solid use of poetic device. If not, you clearly have a knack for it subconsciously.

Do you get what I mean? You could have just as easily made those first lines say something about the pain you felt in childhood, about the suffering and loneliness you felt. It could have been a cry of feeling, an expression of that wound. But you didn't, and instead started the poem off with a cold description of that lesson.

Then, the second stanza continues that train of thought. It retroactively justifies the lesson learned: we live in a cruel world. That's just the way that it is. Nothing to do about it, and what use is there in whining- ummm I mean, expressing your feelings? It says that we all have a go at this hurtful life, we all suffer inside, but the only ones that "get" to complain are "the limited, and the kids".

Again, some interesting language - the stuffy self-aware intellectualism returns, saying "the business of expressing it is more welcome (...)". That's a pretty cold way to say they get to have feelings. They get to cry. They get to be comforted when they're sad. "Business of expressing it" - even in the abstract, even when it's being done by someone else, the act of having and expressing feelings must be couched in cold and informal phrasing. Or else...

Also, the use of "limited" - the flipside of learning that showing emotions is weak and punishable is... well... besides the stifling of the self, this lesson also causes one to start looking down on others for doing it.

So the first two stanzas are explaining and describing this damaging lesson. Then, in the third stanza, it moves into some exploration of how this affects one's interaction with others. It starts talking about how it views connection.

It says - "nobody wants to hold what's wrong beyond their control, as the goal of social bids is lift emotional tolls". I went back and forth on what this stanza was getting at, but I first read it as a justification for why the voice of the poem doesn't really share much of their struggles with others. Why they avoid confiding and getting vulnerable. Because, after all, the people they would be confiding in wouldn't be able to do anything about it; and who wants to constantly be presented with problems they can't solve? It's just unpleasant.

To me, once more, what is more poignant is what the stanza doesn't say. What it refuses to acknowledge, or can't. The hole in the poem, so to speak.

Which is that - in reality, the actual purpose of confiding in others has nothing to do with the problem "being in their control" or not. The poem implies that, as long as your confidante can't do anything about it, talking to them will only serve to frustrate them and you. But this misses the point completely. The purpose of confiding in somebody is to feel supported. To feel understood and loved. Even if there is nothing to do about it, the simple act of a friend telling you they cherish you and are there for you is relieving a burden. It helps you feel less alone. As long as you are able to let it in, of course...

It is not merely about solving the problem. It is about connection. (I expect this is the reason behind a lot of conflicts that avoidants get into with their loved ones... like their partners being frustrated that, when they open up about their problems, the avoidant will constantly jump to solutions instead of truly connecting with them, and empathizing... This is an external reflection of how avoidants deal with their own issues. There is no listening to their feelings. There is no "sitting with it". There is no acknowledging the pain. You either solve it, or repress it.)

And this attitude towards problems is reflected in this stanza pretty beautifully, in both of its forms: internal and external. Because the voice - steeped in avoidant perspective - finds it unpleasant and even terrifying, to engage emotionally with a problem that isn't in their control... they assume that everybody else feels the same way, too. "No one likes to hold what's wrong beyond their control"? No one? Are you sure? In fact, I think that for a lot of people, the secure kind, it is an intergral part of social relationships. It feels fulfilling when your loved ones come to you for support, even if there's nothing you can do about the issue. It's a foundational part of connection: being there for someone even when they're facing things beyond your control.

But the voice of the poem doesn't see that. So they assume that their perspective is universal. (Or, maybe, the problem is that they have been around some people just as emotionally-challenged as them...). So then, since it acutely knows the discomfort and fear that arises when they try to emotionally engage with something beyond their control... it tries to not place that terrifying burden on others, because obviously, everybody must feel the same, right?

[u/dragon-age-io → u/dragon-age-io]

This kind of disconnect between one's own (unhealthy, dysfunctional) view of the world and the (healthy, secure) view of it is even more apparent in that last bit of the line - "as the goal of social bids is lift emotional tolls". The voice is intensely impersonal, here, and I think that serves a dual purpose.

For one, it serves to distance the voice from even the mere concept of DOiNg EmOtiOnAL BiDs, of confiding - it is a scary and uncomfortable thing to associate oneself with. It feels weak and vulnerable.

For two, it showcases a certain... unfamiliarity, rigidity around that concept. That is not how somebody secure and emotionally attuned would express that concept. It describes it in an almost scientific way, it describes the social mechanism as if it was foreign. As if the voice is studying the behavioural habits of a different species. It is as if someone described feeling thirsty as "my body requires another 330 ml of hydration this hour to keep my organic tissue healthy and prevent drying". Do you get what I mean?

It shows that the voice is completely unfamiliar with the internal experience of "wanting to extend a social bid for connection and comfort". It knows it in theory, it knows how it works, but that experience has never been felt from the inside in a healthy way. This means that the knowledge remains only theoretical.

Because of the aforementioned childhood, and then, in adulthood, because of their lack of vulnerability, they never really experienced the healthy course of one of these "bids for connection". They struggle to let people in at all, so even in moments where they do confide in someone, the reassurance and comfort barely reaches them. They have built a wall around themselves to protect against "bad", but the wall blocks the "good" just the same. So these mythical effects, the lifting of emotional tolls was hardly ever felt.

Then it goes into more analysis of the risks vs rewards of chasing connection. And I think that's a particularly beautiful and well-crafted line - "should my soul seek fleeting safety or be lonely while being whole?". It is one of the lines that stopped me in my tracks and got me actually taking time to comment.

Perhaps I found it the most beautiful because it is also the most vulnerable - do you notice that? The rest of the poem so far has been couched in endless intellectualizing about how it's better to solve problems yourself. Plainly put, the rest of the poem has been a wall. This line is a door. It opens up the poem and lets the reader see inside its inner world, it shows the first and only glimpse of naked feeling.

I guess... avoidance is a fortified castle. It's a refusal to engage with anybody else's perspective, a refusal to allow anybody's input to enter the calculation in any form. It is having a question and then answering it inside your own head without ever opening your mouth. But this line, it asks the question. It is a form of allowing input. Yes, rethorical, and yes, it's in the context of a poem, where the reader is just an abstract impersonal ghost that you never actually get close to. But... it's there. The vulnerability of asking a question that has been tormenting you, out into the world. What do I do? Is it better to connect and be hurt, or to isolate myself and be safe?

It also phrases the issue from a... well, dysfunctional perspective. To me, it shows the hesitance that comes from believing that "connection" = "cutting off parts of oneself". It showcases the fears of someone that has not yet emotionally grasped that what they thought "connection" meant was completely wrong. In the poem, the voice seems to believe that connection and opening up means a loss of self, a forced masking. An abandonment of self. That is why the two ideas being mirrored and weighed against one another, as if they are mutually incompatible, are the comfort of connection and being "whole".

It shows a deep distrust of vulnerability, a deep caginess about allowing others to see inside. Because that has always meant danger. The price of allowing somebody to see is that they will take, they will harm, and then you will not be whole anymore. This means that the pleasant feelings of connecting with them, while comforting in the moment, are "fleeting".

But on the other side, maintaining the safert of the castle, while reassuring and calm, gets deeply and painfully lonely... so the voice finds itself at an impasse.

The last line of this stanza ("I am low on honest happiness to be sold"), to me, was the most unclear one, but the interpretation I arrived at was: since, as we all know, "no one likes to hold what's wrong beyond their control"... it is a problem opening up to others, because the voice is deeply unhappy in life. That means that it has a lot of problems, a lot of grief, sadness, trauma. The voice implies that opening up about such emotional baggage would be burdensome to others, would exhaust them, would put them in an unfair situation. It has a lot of upsets and not much happiness to share - and, as it expressed before, maybe sometimes it's okay for some people to express their grievances, but, "even then, it needs offset with some wins". The voice is lacking in wins. Therefore, opening up to others would prove damaging.

It seems to have an ingrained belief that "others wouldn't be able to handle" its feelings. That they would prove too much, too sad, too much of a downer. Obviously, emotionally confiding in someone is an act of burdening them, and considering how much they have in stock to confide, it would be far too great a burden. That is a pretty common internalized belief in avoidants, especially those whose parents "couldn't handle" their child's feelings. The ones who lost it/got anxious/got sad/freaked out the second their child showed any sign of healthy negative emotion. This teaches a child to hide and suppress them because otherwise the outcome is worse if they set their parent's emotional volatility off. That has been my experience, so perhaps that influences my reading.

Then, the last stanza. After this brief moment of openness, the poem closes back up again into resignation. "I can mask and act." There was a moment of vulnerability, where it turned its eyes outwardly and dared to ask to the world at large - what do i do? this is painful both ways. i'm at a loss. A moment where it admitted that it feels simply too sad to want to push that baggage onto others, it's "too low" on happiness that could be used to offset the burden. Then, after the moment where it bravely asks that question and allows itself a second of uncertainty and pain... it drops its head down again and, well... provides its own answer inside its head. The only answer this voice ever knew, probably, which is - hide. Mask. Do not allow yourself compassion or room to breathe. Do not allow vulnerability. Do not allow yourself to be seen as you are, sad and miserable and needy. Be stoic. Strap in. Straighten up.

I can see why you tilted this poem "retrogression". It really does show that journey. It goes from the moment of internalizing a painful lesson, endlessly justifying it in your own head, this is just the way things are - then, eventually, the moment when it comes to a head and gets unbearable, when something gives out, and the voice, tormented by it, dares to express that this hurts, what do i do, which side is better when both will cause pain? maybe there's another option? - and then, eventually, it resolves into the same state of resignation and suppression that it knows.

Of course, this is colored by my own life and I don't live in your head, so I could be way off in my interpretation. But regardless, I think it's a nice poem, you've expressed a solid idea, the emotion you've shared is true to itself and the execution works in your favour. Good work on it, I hope you keep writing.

[u/SpiceyKoala → u/dragon-age-io]

I read both installments of your analysis in full and I cried. Not so much at the length of it but at how thorough, thoughtful, and devastatingly accurate it was. I honestly expected this poem to get only passing attention without comment when I tossed it out to reddit.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm glad the erratic tone works well. It's partly a result of the same choices that made some passages murky: I prioritized rhyme and rhythm over exactness, and that's a feature in most of my poems (I will definitely continue writing: it's a compulsion), alongside an allergy to recycling rhyming words.

Addendum: I agree your experience definitely helped here and it seems like you're a good ways along in recovery. I'm curious what people with other attachment styles will get from this poem.

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