read a poem by bob gallo and chewed on some thoughts i didn't dare to think about before; this is the result

Daniel beat me to nominating this!

I do have a few notes, suggestions, thoughts that are completely my opinion and you are free to ignore :) I haven't read much work or seen much posted from you so this was a pleasant surprise.

"I was trapped between the two wings I was given.
And I, lifted by love,

Was thrown into devouring, gluttonous mouths,
Chewed into shards underneath their teeth
Perfect sweetness melting light as air."

- I loved the line break here and the concept of being "lifted" by love. It intertwines hope and love, or solidifies that love and hope are reciprocal. Love is hope and hope is love. It's encouragement. The image of the "devouring, gluttonous mouths" made me think of the purity of love and how often others try to ruin it. Sabotage something so innocent at first. I wasn't 100% in love with the pairing of "perfect" and "sweetness", it didn't say enough for me and "melting light as air" didn't give enough emotion in my mind. Or enough of a "wow, this is a scary thing to be this vulnerable..."

Upon reading again, the first line of being trapped between two wings made me think of the way we limit ourselves, keep ourselves from feeling and from taking a leap of faith with this new love.

"I lingered bitter in their throat."

- This is a striking line, but I think the flow would be better if "bitter" was changed to "bitterly"?

"When my feathers stuck together with sugar,
They burned and twisted and caramelized in an eye-blink;"

- Ohh, the kind of pain that's described here from something so good, a love so bright, that may end up being your downfall. There's a lot of hinting at contradictions, like something overly sweet, too much of what we always wanted that it can suffocate us. I never hear the word "eye-blink", as usually it's just "blink", but I kind of liked it.

"You stole away the wings they glutted on and I

Fell; again."

- This whole commentary on a new love is fascinating, falling in love, but literally falling, others weighing you down and suddenly this person comes and you are no longer in "their" grasp.... society, your own demons/nightmares? I wasn't really feeling the use of "glutted" since you had written "gluttonous" before and it felt a bit awkward when read aloud, but that's probably also because I don't hear that word used often "glutted", so it made me stop for a second.

"I had laughed as I crumbled, and I called it freedom."

- Such a powerful ending line! It reminded me of the delusion or uncertainty, of us fading when we meet someone knew, of the very definition of freedom. How a relationship or start of love seem like freedom when instead, it can lead us astray or bond us.

I don't know, these were just my rambling thoughts while reading, also neat how you thought about the concept of freedom from Bob Gallo's poem. Introspective and I still think parts of this reflect on self-love? Perhaps when we accept ourselves, and others realize it, "they" (the birds, crows etc) tend to want to feast on our acceptance of ourselves, because they can't ever taste that freedom. Hmm...

Glad to see this nominated as there is a lot of depth in this!

If you dont mind my asking, what poem by Bob Gallo lead you to write this poem?

Thank you for linking that poem by Bob Gallo, it's an interesting thought. What truly is freedom? I love reading works that have are rooted in other pieces, I've always loved how one idea can be interpreted similarly or differently by multiple people, or when they develop a piece even more, shedding light on stuff that was apparent to me. Sorry, went off on a little tangent. That being said, most of what I wanted to say was already covered by MA. So I'll keep my comments brief.

It's clear homage to the poem by Bob Gallo which I enjoyed, but you developed it further more by incorporating the idea of being lifted by love and setting the tone for this poem. I love the word-choice of 'lifted', because in physics, lift is a force generated when a solid object moves through a fluid. The idea of love being fluid is appropriate. That decision is something small, something that might've been unintentional but does a lot for this poem. The idea of ravenous mouths consuming you/your love and finding it to be saccharine is nicely executed - it perfectly balances the uncertainty of love (something that might be seen as self-imposed requital of freedom) with the peaks it offers.

"I had laughed as I crumbled, and I called it freedom."

This ending verse floored me, it came full circle with the reference to Bob Gallo's poem, that you developed. I interpreted this to be open-ended, does the speaker find freedom in no longer having wings, and being free from the responsibilities of flight, or was it freedom to have been loved (as 'ravenous' as it was).

Thank you for sharing this with us, and I look forward to reading more poetry from you. :)