u/og-lollercopter

The most romantic god is Athena
Goddess of wisdom
Not Aphrodite or Eros

Knowing you
Resolves beauty more clearly
Deepens my love for you

Seeing you and feeling you
Without understanding you
Would be a tragedy

Going to the Louvre was alright
I guess
But everything you showed me
Was the second most beautiful
In the room

As the sculptor strikes the stone
Shards spray and dance across the floor
The finely carved figure emerges
While haphazard shapes litter the room

Every stroke of the hammer deliberate
Breaking away the undesirable
Leaving only the ideal standing
But the dross is no less the stone

The statue stands exposed
Put on display to be beheld
To be interpreted
No less by the patron than by the artist himself

The shards of becoming
Cast on the floor
I keep them
Collect them

Hidden away for they are mine alone
The pointy sharp shrapnel
Created by the violent process of self definition
Are we all not defined as much by what is gone as we are by what remains?

This heavy sack of stone shavings
The sum of all that has been taken and worse, freely given
Far greater than what is left
Is the burden of what has been lost

I still remember my clothes growing up
As the youngest child
Hand me downs
Only occasional shopping

The hand me downs were my brother’s
Someone else’s tastes
Never quite me
Frayed around the edges

Even when we shopped
They were always a couple sizes
Too big
Don’t worry honey, you’ll grow into them

The clothes were never me
Always meant for someone
That I wasn’t
Someone I’d never be

Even today
When I shop for myself
They’re still never me
Not quite right

Will she like them
What if I get bigger
Or smaller
Or stop liking this style

So even now
Decades later
I dress myself
In someone else’s clothes

Someone I will never be

The funhouse is filled with mirrors
Distorting me
Reporting me back to myself
Twisted and strange

None of these images
Is as I see myself
Contorted and ruined
By the mirror's misshapen surface

But these are not mirrors
These are the eyes of those all around me
Perceiving me
Bending my image to their will

This is a calculated act of interpretation
Not seeing the best or worst of me
Painting in the silhouette
Some shading around the edges

This runs deeper;
These eyes attempt to define me
To overlay their blueprint on a canvas
That was never theirs

The more I resist the violence of their perception
The more clearly I see the damage I do to myself
The distortion of the image I present
And I realize

I have crafted this image
From the materials
Defined by them
A simple artwork created from stolen supplies

I found you, my oasis,
in the deepest shelf of waste.
You must be a mirage –
yet hope propelled me forward.

Lush and life-giving,
I stumbled into your embrace,
hollowed by thirst,
emptied of hope and will.

They say you can drown in water
by drinking too fast.
Still, I lap you up recklessly;
I know no other way to hold you.

I will gladly take the fever,
the quiet poisoning of excess,
if I can swallow you whole
and press your goodness into my bones.

However briefly,
I will finally truly live
before the end.
I only fear drinking you dry -

robbing some other parched wanderer
the mercy of your shade,
or worse, depleting you
of your own green life.

My Oasis

I found you, my oasis,
in the deepest shelf of waste.
You must be a mirage –
yet hope propelled me forward.

Lush and life-giving,
I stumbled into your embrace,
hollowed by thirst,
emptied of hope and will.

They say you can drown in water
by drinking too fast.
Still, I lap you up recklessly;
I know no other way to hold you.

I will gladly take the fever,
the quiet poisoning of excess,
if I can swallow you whole
and press your goodness into my bones.

However briefly,
I will finally truly live
before the end.
I only fear drinking you dry -

of robbing some other parched wanderer
the mercy of your shade,
or worse, depleting you
of your own green life.

June 16, 2026

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ldu4jOn8Ma

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/Zs6eXZOWxs