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This is unfortunately one of those threads. I haven't done much prose or poetry in my life, and most of it the horrible rhyming type. I managed this one yesterday in a small group. Maybe someone will enjoy it. I'm happy to take critiques, being very new to this. This is based on a real story, hopefully the theme comes through:


The halls don't creak quite as loud as Covid's glaciers, heavy on the roof. But they echo perfectly.
My hearing isn't keen, but it carries well. Enough to find distractions. And it's cold in here.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so cold if not for the hooks dangling from the ice,
  through the ceiling down to my room
    shining, visceral hooks of silicon and light

My little baubles of affection. It's my social proxy. The internet, dancing in every color

Do you want to dance? Join me as we rocket away
  discarding stage one,
    then stage two

And three. Three are left dancing. Whose next to be left behind? But it's fine, it's fine. All systems online

I learn their names and their faces,
  the warmth of "I love you" each night
    coveted and new

I meet one in closer light.

But as distance shrinks from silicon to flesh, it slips further through the bones until all that's left is a ghost,
stinging   through the ceiling down to my room
    silence, sharp and ringing in the halls

He accuses me while holding the knife.

And now it's their faces again, the warmth of "I love you" as if it never happened, but I see the scored metal
What did I do to deserve it? Why was I blamed for it? But it's fine, it's fine. Maybe I missed a sign.

Now they come and go selectively, and meet without me. But it's all smiles.

And months later I see it, a crack in his mask,
  the scorn whispering from beneath
    and silence

A month of silence, louder until I can't take it, overthinking about signs, socials, what to say and what I did
I'm losing my friends. So in the night, I send a beacon in the real world

And they visit in pairs, all except for him,
  no secrets slipping between their teeth
    remote as the stars outside

My head against the wall, overthinking loud in my ears. I had BEEN there, SEEN them. I can't believe the betrayal
Months pass until I hear the beacon. I'm colder than the ice, now. It can't stop me.

It cracks. It breaks, rumbling now off the eeves like my disillusionment.
My hands warm, warm with friends, too warm for winter.

And so the hook falls from the rafters, crashing to the earth below,
  survivors watching
    nod in approval

Good show.
I walk away.

I know very little about critiquing any kind of poetry, except that knowing this kind may be the hardest to write. It flows pretty well when I read it which may be the most important thing. But without more context I think a lot of the specifics of what it's about may not quite come through, even if the basic gist is there. Which is not necessarily a mark against it, it's one of those things that may depend more on your purpose for writing it.

Thanks. There's a lot of context intended to be shown, but others agree it's pretty confused and hard to follow. I think I need to give a little more room between some of these concepts.

In keeping with Mondays being poetry days, here's a poem that I had 10 minutes to write which had to be about "twilight masquerade", so I went for a simple format.

Seeded winds rife with cotton,
where do they go after they're forgotten?

Those little shadows that pulsate dark,
over waves of seeds in Twilight's spark

Perhaps not something so deeply shaded,
could form the shutters that keep sunlight bladed

And what else plays there, in that place
of night and day, and liminal space?

There's no reason to assume fair play
in the roil of twilight's masquerade

And rhythm relinquishes to the battle
between the forces that fight here

And rhyme is lost in the tumultuous drift
the same one that tumbles the grass in those winds

So once again, to the original query
where does the cotton go when the day grows eerie?

Now write the next one in the shape of a cat