On the surface, Hello Poetry is a haven: a digital campfire where voices gather to warm each other against the cold expanse of the internet. A place where the line between confession and creation often blurs, and where the act of writing is not performance, but survival.

But lately, the fire has grown too bright—artificially bright.

They call them suns—badges of appreciation, visible tokens of endorsement. A nice idea, right? Support a poet. Shine a spotlight. But as with all systems that monetize visibility, the spotlight becomes a searchlight—and it stops illuminating truth. It blinds us instead.

The Distortion of the Feed
Let’s be clear: this is not about sour grapes or petty envy. It’s about who gets seen, and why.

When you pay $15 for five suns, or receive them via subscription, you can choose to boost any work. Once sunned, this poem trends. And if you sun multiple works, the system staggers their rise—today, tomorrow, the next. It’s orderly. Predictable.

And utterly devastating to the organic ecosystem of the front page.

On days when these sunned poems stack high, young writers—often screaming silently through metaphors—are buried. Their work no longer rides the wave of genuine engagement. It gets eclipsed by well-polished pieces with patrons, not peers.

I scrolled today through endless sunshine, only to discover—way down below—the voices of kids trying to survive abuse. Strangers admitting they're scared to wake up. Teens reaching out through enjambment because they have no one else. And they were hidden. Flattened beneath an algorithm that rewards polish over pulse, polish over pain.

HePo Isn’t 911—But It’s a Lifeline
We can’t pretend that Hello Poetry is a substitute for emergency services. It’s not. But we also can’t pretend that this space doesn’t carry immense emotional gravity. For many—especially the young and unseen—it is the only place they’ve ever received an honest comment. An echo. A sign that their words matter.

When a trending system sidelines vulnerability in favor of vanity, it commits a subtle violence. It reinforces that unless your work is sunworthy, it isn’t worthy at all.

Let’s Not Confuse Curation with Censorship
This is not a call to cancel the sun system. This is a call to recalibrate it.

Let paid support elevate—but not suffocate. Let sunned poems shine—but not dominate. Let the front page reflect what it always claimed to: the soul of the community, not the size of its wallet.

We can love poetry and refuse to commodify visibility. We can cherish the bright voices without dimming the urgent ones.

Conclusion: A Platform of Conscience
Hello Poetry, if you are listening, understand this:

You’ve built something precious. Don’t let it rot under the weight of your own reward system. Make room for the cries. Make room for the wild, imperfect, confessional, gasping work. Because if we let only the sunned poems rise, we are choosing applause over advocacy.

And some of these poets?
They don’t need praise.
They need an ear to be heard.


Thank you for reading.

Re-post if you agree ❤️

Are we but pawns on a chessboard
That God just moves about haphazardly?
Or are we placed strategically;
And through God’s plans can claim: “Checkmate!”

. Canto I: The Movement .

Sing, O depths, of the sundered and stitched—
of lovers who fled the lattice of men.
They bore no dowry but discord and blaze,
cast off from the courts of the land-born kin.

She rose from a brine-locked temple,
crowned in eelbones and saltglass,
her voice a harpoon through silence.
He came from a pyre of failed gods,
drunk on the ash of forgotten cities,
carrying a heart wrapped in nettle and wire.

They met in the undertow—
not with grace, but with rupture.
He called her flame in the throat of the sea,
she named him the reef that bleeds stars.

They kissed in the eye of a cyclone,
fed each other names never spoken twice,
and shackled themselves in sinew and storm.

Let it be known: they did not set sail.
They were flung—howling—from the world’s wound.


. Canto II: The Recognition .

Seven moons passed through their lungs
before they saw.

Not eyes—not bodies—
but the myths coiled inside each other’s ribs.

She bore a temple in her stomach
where drowned saints wept for the living.
He kept a cemetery behind his tongue
for all the truths he’d butchered with silence.

They laid bare their reliquaries,
cracked open their chests
like oysters of ruin—
and still, they reached.

No mercy. No disguise.
Only pulse and plague.
She screamed her mother’s curses into his jaw.
He fed her the names of storms he never wept for.

Still—
they danced.
Still—
they sank.
Not from weight,
but from knowing.

And the sea, jealous of such raw mirror,
split its throat open,
so even Poseidon would forget peace.


. Canto III: The Resolution .

They did not break.
They were not mended.
They blurred,
like blood in tide,
like prayer in fog.

The sea claimed their names,
then forgot them—
but the bones remembered.

Now coral grows from their vows.
Now whales dream their sighs.

She became the thrum beneath shipwrecks,
the voice in a sailor’s last breath.
He became the itch in the compass,
the pull toward madness at dusk.

If you listen—
truly listen—
you may still hear it:
a hymn of wire, salt, and marrow,
carried on a wave older than time.

Not warning.
Not lament.
But tribute.

To the wire-bound lovers—
to the myth that dared to bleed
and called it sacred.

Red-brown pine trunk,
With severed branches,
Greedily soaks up the streams
Heavenly waters.

Anxiety before anxiety,
sorrow before sorrow,
word before word.
I think it will arrive sooner
than I expected…

Had I felt differently?
Had I known better?
That “thing” was imprinted
on the heart of each child
before it was forgotten.

The Z boson? A particle of God?
Inner awareness?
Lightness and compassion
screaming: keep going!
Forgiveness is a gift
for healing.

I prefer to withdraw.
Foreseeing the future
is too painful.

I feel safe in my inertia,
my comfort zone, not acting
but that intrusive voice
keeps shouting: don’t stop!

If it weren’t the fear of fearing,
sorrow before sorrow,
word before word…
They don’t bother me anymore.
For different circumstances,
I’m ready now.

you wish you were invisible sometimes
to hide the scars and bruises on your neck,
'cause once you have been seen you can't go back
to being just a gap between the lines
of someone else's story,
of someone else's life.
now your disguise is too thin to protect,
now you've been noticed, captured by a net that keeps you still.
you wonder when they're going for the ****,
you're counting moments,
but they keep on slipping through the wires,
you wish you were invisible sometimes.

What's your curse?

Let me talk,
Let me express,
You'll
See me
Utterly
Failed
Miserable
Desperately
Wishing
To
Take
Every
Word
Back.