This one has been brewing for a while. Glad I got it down on paper, so to speak.


New

On day one
You stick out like a sore thumb,
A fish out of water,
A stranger, a loner,
A silent lunch eater

You don't have much
in common with them.
You're older, you're bolder,
You have a chip on your shoulder

The first time you skip class,
they text to say they miss you,
And then one day they invite you
to bunk class and get biryani

Soon, you have a favourite bathroom stall,
a bus friend, and a borrowed eraser,
which is as much yours as it is theirs!

You realise that
you are as much them
as you allow yourself to be.

The energy spent
holding on to your otherness
is better spent
discovering the other within you.






Poetry by Inspired
Read 16 times
Written on 2025-11-22 at 09:32

Tags Belonging  New  College 

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Griffonner The PoetBay support member heart!
Oh that last stanza! Such a fitting conclusion to your conversational styled poem that IMHO describes a newcomer student's gradual assimilation into a social group of a scholarly nature.
(I'm being more analytical than usual because you seek to have a more in depth feedback.)
Your use of free verse to my mind is thoroughly suitable in this work.
You use some pretty effective metaphors in such phrases as "stick out like a sore thumb" and "a fish out of water" serving for your initial feelings of being out of place.
I liked the imagery, such as "favourite bathroom stall" and "bunk class and get biryani," which somehow make your story more relatable.
Overall it was an interesting read the first time - which resulted in my opening expression/sentence - and then as a second analytical scan I came to appreciate the poetic construct that I have mentioned.
Blessings, Allen
2025-11-22