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 Jun 6 irinia
badwords
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 ❤️
I want to be the dandelion
growing in between the cracks
in the sidewalk
living in spite
of everything trying to
**** it
How could I shield myself from the words
that lift me into the highest lowness?
Dearly beloved, raw openness,
the source of my grace and imperfection.

I feel strangely weightless
when my precognition
whispers to me about my possible future.
I hush all my names,
they’re not statues carved
by the thoughts of others.

I watch people drift in and out,
I touch the tree leaves in the cold wind.
Looking tenderly into the eyes of black ravens
I just try to see what they see.

I don’t fear the dark,
the primal womb that gives light
and birth to worlds spread across space.
Losing someone I love is my only fear.
Death comes uninvited, in its own time.

Love is my helpless, naked truth.
My moral compass still works
in my body.
At night, I find sleep and rest.
In light, the warmth,
and the souls of others.

I see the tired hearts
I find solace, looking into the light.
The body brings fleeting fullness.
I gather the crumbs of mystery,
expecting nothing,
just enough to find my dignity
and make peace with the unreachable.
Carrying my truth.
I stand by my views,
watching through
my weakening gaze.

After a raging storm,
making peace with myself,
I vanish into the air,
my convictions fold with me.

Without simple answers,
wearing the new lens,
I see another world:
not clearer,
not wiser,
not safer,

just slightly shifted.
Every day, I open my reality:
I wake up.
I feel.
I choose.
I decide—
knowing so many others
are crying behind the scenes,
and their trembling is raw.

Pain isn’t consolation—
it reinforces the structure of fragility
when the towers are crumbling.

At the core, we return,
squeezing black-and-white struggles
into our veins, into our memories.

To the only home
we never left
our own body.
The first and the last.
 Jun 4 irinia
nivek
one birds chirrup
can pierce the sky

the skylarks song
for its lovers heart..
 Jun 4 irinia
Ma-kayla
Even the moon has to go through phases -
sometimes barely there,
sometimes shining full.
But no matter what,
it always comes back whole.
The wind bears witness, crying as it blows,
Yet cannot answer, cannot promise when my love will return.
I wished to welcome him home, but all that ship brought back was sorrow.
I pray—I call—yet fate still turns the same.

Each night I kneel, my vow beneath the sky.
I whisper love, I beg the stars to weave his path home,
Yet morning breaks, and distance still divides.
The waves unyielding—bound by fate’s cruel rage.

They say my love was weak, was mute, was small.
They mistook silence for emptiness—as if words could prove love’s depth.
I do not owe them proof — Only to my love, I shall call.
My grief lingers, drowns, and cleaves itself from breath.
Rumors may lie, but on our behalf, the wind still pleads.
I've always been waiting, Ceyx— heed.

"You failed him," they whisper through the rain.
"You let him go—you sealed his fate."
Yet my hands tremble, failing to reach you.
My love remains. For you, alone, I still wait.

Ceyx, I call, if echoes reach beyond—
Do not believe the lies they whisper across water.
Your name still lingers soft upon my tongue.
Through night and day, my love still remains.

Ceyx. Ceyx. Ceyx.
I speak your name, though only the wind knows.
I call—but the tide does not return your soul.
I will not go. I will not let love drown.

Ceyx. Ceyx. Ceyx.
I swore, I swear, my love won’t fade.
If time dissolves, if fate decrees,
Still, I won’t let them take. Still, I’ll always wait.
A third cry carried upon 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑊𝑎𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔—but sorrow speaks in silence.


https://hellopoetry.com/collection/136314/the-wings-of-waiting/
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