You ask for feedback, so I’m going to try my best to give a bit… keep in mind I’m not trying to be negative and just hoping something I say helps you! Also, poetry is very subjective and hard to comment on in my opinion.
Your structure is very tidy at the start. You use 4 line stanzas in a free form poem with an ABAB rhyme scheme. I like this structure. I even like that you break the structure with the last stanza to emphasize the ending. However, I didn’t get the structure of the last stanza… it seems to be a ABCADEB rhyme scheme. Be free is set apart as its own (very short) line. None of this is bad, I just don’t quite understand it when everything else was so structured.
I think part of the problem is the heavy emphasis on “be free” was confusing to me. I know what you want to be free from, this city sounds horrible! But how are you getting free? Earlier you said you can’t leave… so are you asking the reader or some higher power to take you out of the city? Are you asking for the strength to take the mask off and escape yourself? Or is death seen as a way to escape? It’s very unclear to me what freedom means in this context. You speak of not dying but I didn’t get the sense that something was killing you… feels like I missed something, unless the message is “I want to be me even if it kills me.”
Another thing I wanted to touch on is the use of the word “overcompensate”. This is mostly a comment on how you completed the prompt. The goal was to use these words “naturally” and you did that with “lemons” and “energy” (although I didn’t understand the metaphor of “lemons on a beach” personally, it felt like a forced rhyme… but if it conveys the message you want I’m 100% for it). However, “overcompensate” stands out really bad for two reasons. The first is it’s the only word like it in the poem. Most of the poem uses smaller words and lines and then BAM overcompensate. Haha. You probably should have thrown in a large word every so often to make that one not stand out… you had a few, but “overcompensate” is almost as long as entire lines of your poem! It’s a tough word to casually work into a poem though… the other problem is you put the verb before the subject (what I call “Yoda speech” from the Star Wars character) to force a rhyme. “Overcompensate I did” sounds very backwards to conventional grammar in English. It’s not wrong! But you never do it anywhere else, so it sounds funny. “I’m sure it makes them glad” could be “it makes them glad, I’m sure” to make your overcompensate line blend in more, but it would change a few more rhymes…
By the way, some of the rhymes felt a little forced.. like “I wouldn’t normally use this word here ever, but I need to rhyme!” I’ll list some of the lines that get like forced rhymes that the flow could be improved on to say something more natural:
“Clothes I wrung”
“overcompensate I did”
“Like lemons on a beach”
The idea is that it doesn’t sound like you are trying to rhyme but the lines flow naturally. The first stanza is a pretty good example of where you didn’t force rhymes. It all rhymes, but it’s just a description of the city and what it means to you.
My last thought was on the pronouns. I don’t know why you are referring to half the time because it seems to change mid stanza and isn’t made clear who you are talking about. You start talking about “me” and “I”, making this a very personal poem about you, the author. I rather like that. The four stanzas in we hear about “your” and “you” meaning ME, the reader. Whoa! Now I’m in the city. Then “the girls”, followed by “they”, back to “your” etc. I personally would make all of the “you” and “your” to “I” “me” or “my” to keep this about you! It’s your story, and it can be assumed that “they” and “the girls” are the people you meet in this city. It’s a small thing, but it’s actually a perspective switch…
Anyway, it was a good poem overall for talking about trying to fit in so hard you lose yourself and get trapped in a fake society you feel you can’t escape from. At least, that’s the feeling I got from it!
