Posts: 2
Threads: 1
Joined: Oct 2025
The Kiss You Call Mercy
My name is snow white
on the lips of the greedy and hungry,
in the eyes that don't see me,
to hands just like yours.
You find me in dreams; I’m always asleep.
Do you have fantasies of pulling the plug on me—
to be the kiss that lifts
my rotten body
from restful bliss to reality?
To kneel, adoring, at my feet,
as they stick out from under a white sheet.
To cradle what no longer breathes.
How merciful, to still my heart
and listen for its missing beat;
for a final sigh to escape my body
and dreams folded under my ribs
to find their end.
To you - at best,
I’m just a beautiful idea.
an angel, pale and bleak;
so you take her and wake her -
violently pull her from the safest
of sleeps.
Posts: 47
Threads: 50
Joined: Sep 2025
[quote="penclicksound" pid='275013' dateline='1760283902']
The Kiss You Call Mercy
My name is snow white
on the lips of the greedy and hungry,
in the eyes that don't see me,
to hands just like yours.
You find me in dreams; I’m always asleep.
Do you have fantasies of pulling the plug on me—
to be the kiss that lifts
my rotten body
from restful bliss to reality?
To kneel, adoring, at my feet,
as they stick out from under a white sheet.
To cradle what no longer breathes.
How merciful, to still my heart
and listen for its missing beat;
for a final sigh to escape my body
and dreams folded under my ribs
to find their end.
To you - at best,
I’m just a beautiful idea.
an angel, pale and bleak;
so you take her and wake her -
violently pull her from the safest
of sleeps.
[/quote
For me, the material of this poem is very pertinent, but the context - Snow White - is, you know, it removes a horror, a contemporary horror, into a distant history. This is like, you know, second wave feminism 50 years ago, when we might have heard about the Snow White thing, right? But we've moved on from that now. We've got try-on hauls, we've got minors doing YouTube videos where they're all got the same facial expressions, the same movements, the same intonations, phrases and speech patterns, and they all look miserable, bewildered and defeated because somebody is badgering them into making yet another video when they try on age-inappropriate clothing, right? And it's a horror. But having, you know, that, all that presented as merely a Snow White thing is somehow so far removed from our contemporary horror that it's not really effective at returning us to the here and now.
Posts: 7
Threads: 2
Joined: Nov 2025
Hello!
I actually think Snow White is a strong choice for the poem, and I like the choice to set her name in lowercase as a sort of erasure. The message is very vividly depicted with very strong imagery, and the simplicity of it all does wonders for it. In particular, the final two lines are incredibly strong.
I also love the ambiguity of the 'you' - is it a lover? doctor? men as a concept?
My main issue lies in the erroneous use of punctuation, mixture of dashes, semicolons, emdashes, etc.
'an angel, pale and bleak;
so you take her' This semicolon would work better as a full stop.
'To you - at best,' in particular would be better as another comma, or as a pair of emdashes, but then you risk overloading it with emdashes.
I also think that for all the wonderful imagery you've used 'my rotten body' is a little direct, and is a bit too early in the piece to be a shocking punch.
Otherwise, very solid job.
