They look at me
as if hunger has hands.
As if my body were a door
already unlocked.
Their eyes crawl,
slow and certain,
measuring softness like ownership,
like something promised
before I learned the word no.
I shrink inside my own skin,
a house with broken locks,
windows breathing strangers breath.
I want to step out of it,
leave this body hanging
like a dress I never chose.
They say I am good
but only when I am quiet,
when my voice folds itself small
and sits obediently in my throat.
Only good when I smile.
Only good when I listen.
But disobedience has consequences.
Their gaze turns sharp.
Their kindness grows teeth.
Love becomes a warning
spoken without sound.
Their hands feel heavier
when fear cannot scream.
The air thickens and suddenly
my lungs forget
how to be loud.
I learn stillness
the way prey learns shadows,
survival shaped like surrender.
And afterward
their gaze lingers, satisfied,
while I gather pieces of myself
from the floor of my own mind.
I scrub at invisible fingerprints,
reddening my skin,
washing until the water runs cold,
until even my reflection
looks like a stranger I pity.
I want to tear away this skin,
peel off every stare,
every word pressed into me
like fingerprints made of shame.
-
Author:
R.W (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: April 5th, 2026 15:14
- Category: Gothic
- Views: 10
- Users favorite of this poem: Demar Desu - 德马尔·德苏
Offline)
Comments4
Damn… masterpiece of a poem… I understand the harmful effects of objectification… I still don’t know how to balance lust and love though. This poem definitely helps me understand and reflect.
This sounds like a poem of setting limits that are difficult to set. A great read
There's more here than just the gaze, isn't there?
Just what is gothic about all that?
It’s about unease, entrapment and distorted reality. So the poem becomes gothic not because of setting but rather because of feeling it entails.
The sense of being watched, trapped and slowly erased inside a space that should have been safe... the space being your body. The gaze in the poem isn’t only about being looked at. It becomes something more physical, invasive and almost predatory. It’s violation without contact.
You give no indication in your Public Profile of an identity at all.
I must therefore make the assumption that I am addressing a young woman who I as a mature (and then some) heterosexual male would find attractive. And I would gaze, not for too long if we were passing in the street. But gaze I would as men throughout the ages have gazed. Go to any art gallery where, if it contains paintings of any antiquity, you will find examples of rich men’s erotica, now called art. It is deep in my being and at this late stage there is nothing, I can do, even if I wanted to change.
I half wondered if this was about rape, which is a different matter entirely.
It has some connotations of rape from personal experiences. In the poem the man's gaze in unwanted and makes you feel like ripping your skin off.
Any solutions?
BTW, When it comes to rape I'm not talking connotations, fantasies of yours, I'm talking about the real thing, for which there can be no justifications, ever.
Yes the real thing. Which I have experienced. I said connotations as I do not say it directly as it is a sensitive topic.
I'm sorry for that experience, and for arousing yoiur sensitivities.
Take care of yourself.
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