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Raven Kuhn Jan 5
I got my letter but I didn’t read it,
Just followed along with my kin;
I wouldn’t let the Sorting Hat touch me,
And claimed to all I was Slytherin.

I never liked the other colours,
But green seemed to fit, and I felt like a snake!
Plus, when I’d want something as much as I did,
I was more than willing to be fake.

I didn’t try with witches or spells;
I missed class on purpose, and it stung my pride.
My Patronus, the crow, still crouched in my shoulder—
But even he’d known I’d lied. Now I’m trapped inside.

My life’s about art and academia, dark...
So I’ve poured over books behind secret walls.
An INTP means something to me,
Now I’m staring, completely enthralled.

I got my House but I didn't fit in--
At least not to the same degree.
Maybe I earned it for all that I was,
But now it doesn't feel like me.
I'm not a fan of Harry Potter, but I went to the theme park in 2017 and of course my family did the quiz. It got me thinking: if you begged the Sorting Hat hard enough, would it really put you in the House you wanted at the time, even if it wasn't who you'd turn out to be?
This poem eats its own tail,
a serpent made of sentences,
its scales glinting like verbs
you haven’t conjugated yet.

It starts where it ends,
or it never starts at all—
just hovers,
a balloon tied to the wrist
of a stranger you dreamt.

Its metaphors bloom like sideways petals,
teeth glinting beneath their velvet edges,
biting the air until it tastes electric.

It clings to ozone,
that split-second before lightning remembers
it’s a blade meant to cut.

Each metaphor is a double-jointed bone,
bending past reason, snapping backward
into a shape that means nothing—
or everything, I mean everything.

It keeps its secrets folded
into origami shapes that collapse
when you try to unfold them.
A crane? A dagger? A heart?
All of them, none of them—
it depends on the angle of your longing.

This poem is yours only in the pause
between breaths,
mine only in the breath itself.
It ends when you stop reading.
It resurrects the moment I exhale my last.

Each line is a trapdoor,
a loaded chamber spinning,
blanks carved from silence.
You keep reading like the next word
might hold the trigger—
it’s always the one after.

It scratches itself raw
just to prove it can bleed,
then paints over the scars
in words you’ve heard before,
but never in this order.

This poem wants nothing from you,
except everything—
your eyes, your breath,
the parts of you
you didn’t know could rot so stunningly.

It will devour itself,
edges sharp with longing.
While you starve,
your breath will catch—
a witness to the teeth
that hollowed you.
Valentine Aug 2024
We watch for rattlesnakes as we walk
And after nearly bitten by death
Grab them by their gleeful heads
Deep holes we dig
Soon doused in gasoline
Where the creatures are flung atop their brethren
The devil's eyebrows curling into one another
Soon enough
The sparks fly from our feet
Slabs of flint scraping and gliding

Calling ourselves civilized as we waltz above
The rattling of natural beauty
Odd Odyssey Poet Jul 2024
A wave of tears gradually carries away the tides of night
Alongside the river that weeps in its current plight
Unheard songs play, to the dead man who loves to sing
A dead silent night, for two lovers to bury the hatchet
In the tomb of being dead asleep in their shared beds-
Waiting for what falsehoods all sweet dreams bring

As the rhyme for a kiss is hiss; the cobra that loudly speaks,
She purrs and catwalks the runway- while her love is expensive
But we pay for it all, as the clock writes out a free verse

Filling poems to the taste of love, for the apple of my eye
A taste so bitter;- with a snake inside that bit my tongue
In a sole of time, the heart breaks- as roses tend to be forgotten
And unfortunately, the apple to my love had gone rotten.
Odd Odyssey Poet Apr 2024
Love, a complex and ever-evolving force,
can be likened to the shedding of skin
with each passing season, rejuvenating the
spirits of the old to make room for the embrace
of new beginnings.

The ebb and flow of
relationships echo this continual metamorphosis,
as some individuals offer solace through
gentle caresses that blend seamlessly like a
poetic kiss, while others wield their words
with a sharper edge, concealing deceit beneath
the guise of intimacy.

Just as the gentle whisper
of a kiss may be heard, so too can the sinister hiss
of untruths slither beneath the surface,
reminiscent of a serpent's deceitful ways.
leeaaun Dec 2023
pain shows no mercy,
it treats you as an enemy
even when you are always holding
a first aid box–
to heals its wounds
it's like a snake biting you back
Odd Odyssey Poet Nov 2023
how i know i can't swim,
we somehow drifted apart
and i could have taken the advise of Moses,
and split the waters in between us in two,
-but tell me if love wasn't made for two
while i butter you up with sweet words
to have you as a spread
still feeling anxious as two ticks of
a message, still unread.

.....tying, tying,
i still doubt i'm your type,
that sort of guy you like cos
he liked you first,- you must call me cute
and i feel myself trapped in an  unwelcome
phenomenon -really feeling acute
but if you could feast on my eyes, you'd
fall prey to your hunger, if i gave the right look.

maybe i should tattoo my words
for their intentions to stick
but even a subtle taste, bite and a lick,
can at times overstep the tingles rushing
down to your feet. so i do prefer to kiss
but before the kiss, tell me if we'll be
trading skin for skin, or shedding skin off skin
cos we both know kiss will always
rhyme with hiss.
Nigdaw Jun 2023
you are venomous
I said
she smirked
and gave a little hiss
we are washed up
on snake island
a one bed flat
where a monstrous building
has been converted
into lamentable
living spaces
for lonesome souls à deux
neighbours plague us
through paper thin walls
but we have found our own
strange happiness
in our serpent coils
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