About

This is a poem I wrote after reading “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep,” a beautiful, wonderful poem that bothered me because the rhythm was just ever so slightly off if you read it the wrong way. I’m picky about how writing sounds, I guess. I don’t really envision things while reading, I hear them. It’s why Shakespeare is so satisfying to read (at least for me), and why I pay more attention to how a sentence sounds than the visual description it provides. Just a little quirk of mine, I guess.

I wasn’t having the best of days when I first wrote this, but when I took another look at it a few days later, I knew there was something there. So I poked and prodded it until it felt right, and now I’m proud of it. I like it.

I hope you like it, too.

EDIT (December 6, 2024): This poem has been published! It’s featured in the One Page Poetry 2024 Anthology.

The World Is Not A Loving Place

By Kodi Gonzaga

the world is not a loving place,

my parents told me to my face,

it is not kind, but cold and cruel,

and it will take you for a fool.

if you so much as smile wrong

or answer to a stranger’s song

or whisper secrets to a friend

or try to bring about the end

or even try to run away

(a route i thought of every day),

the world will know and block your path,

and you will suffer all its wrath.

i wonder if they know the trick:

the world needs you to make it tick,

its lessons taught with words and fists,

with gentle eyes and laundry lists,

the world made flesh through flesh and bone

(eternal, you need not atone).

i cannot hate, for this they learned

through pain and punishments they earned.

one day I’ll sit them down and sigh

and tell them it was all a lie,

a foolish trial, yes I know,

but I can’t help but love them so.

until that point, so far away,

i’ll carry on, and every day,

the people who meet me will find,

despite it all, the world is kind.