Sameen
What strikes me about this poem is how it captures dissociation with a precision that is almost unsettling. That sense of watching oneself experience life rather than actually feeling it. I gotta say, wow.

I also really liked the repeated image of cellophane, used so effectively, because it's both fragile and suffocating while also being transparent yet isolating. There's also some lines here, like: "hoping for rupture or rapture" and "This clear palace I call home; sterile" that show a linguistic talent I need to celebrate.

If I may share some critiques, it'd be this: the poem circles the same emotional note for a long while. Yes, the numbness is the point, but as a reader, it starts to feel as repetition rather than accumulating tension. This could be fixed with a few more concrete moments and specific scenes where the distance manifests. This would give the abstraction more texture and also make the final desire for freedom land that much harder.

The closing lines are fookin strong. Got nothing to say about that.

All in all, there's a clear voice here. More than that, the poem takes an honest, unflinching look at a difficult state of mind that I've tackled in many of my own poems.

Good job.
2026-09-01

Editorial Team
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2026-08-31

William Hughes
Brilliant comparing and contrasting of various emotions. The cellophane image is very potent. A covering so thin and transparent that it's barely there, yet so impermeable and stifling.
2026-08-28

Jamsbo Rockda
I am reminded of my OCD (not that I need reminding). The feeling of entrapment echoes throughout the whole piece in repetition. Made more frightening by the fact it is your own doing.
2026-08-28

Griffonner
In this interesting and well written poem, the central theme was the very nice use of cellophane as a metaphoric 'encapsulation' of your protagonist's desire, intent, wishes, needs. This is a wall. Perhaps an emotional wall. To achieve your protagonist's desire he/she knows the wall will have to be lowered or knocked down. I have been there once when I was much younger, so I know the feeling of being almost paralyzed. In the end I think it was the realisation that there was no-one else who would actually lower it but me, that enabled me to break through - almost do or die.
Blessings, Allen
2026-08-27

one trick pony
These are scary, unsettling images—suffocation, unable to free yourself to experience what you so want to experience.

Your words made it very real. Entrapped.
2026-08-27