My Boy

Huge eyes swallow up selfishness.
I am glued with sticky concerns to
the pavement like a coward.

But those eyes are expanding for headlights.
My boy is a rabbit, lucky feet wont move
while my yellow belly itches.

Morals vs. Instinct fight to
gain control of either life.
I play god long enough to choose virtue.


Run. Push. Whoosh. gone. cry.
I cough exhaust fumes from,
saintly lungs.


My boy is safe.

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Just an FYI for people not from the south... a 'yellow belly' is a coward.

Interesting topic - something I've considered often; intellect vs instinct. But not as cleverly and subtly pulled off as it could have been. Too obvious, especially in the line, 'Moral vs Instinct' - firstly, don't slam it in my face by summarising the whole point of the poem in that one line, and secondly, don't have that as a title. Instead, pick an element, any element of the poem, and turn it into the title. And focus a lot more on the plot and the story instead and only briefly touch on the idea of 'morals vs instinct' through it, so that when you do, we notice it slipped in sweetly, while not feeling like you're trying to shove the theme of the story down our throats.

Huge eyes swallow up selfishness.
I am glued with sticky concerns to
the pavement like a coward.

Didn't like the first line. 'Huge eyes swallow up' was alright - bit of a mouthful - but 'selfishness'? That's a no-no. You do not need to point out selfishness. Make us feel it and see it, but do not throw it in front of us, bonelessly, like that.

However, the next two lines were a WIN - 'glued with sticky concerns' was fabulous. I think you could have been a lot more subtle than 'like a coward,' though.

But those eyes are expanding for headlights.
My boy is a rabbit, lucky feet wont move
while my yellow belly itches.

I liked the quirkiness behind 'eyes expanding for headlights' - makes it more real, almost cartoonish in a way. I liked 'yellow belly itches' - though I saw no significance to the theme (yellow = cowardice? I don't know) - but the 'my boy is a rabbit' was just too obvious for my liking.

Morals vs. Instinct fight to
gain control of either life.
I play god long enough to choose virtue.


Run. Push. Whoosh. gone. cry.
I cough exhaust fumes from,
saintly lungs.

My boy is safe.

This bit needs to be rewritten to read something along the lines of telling the story rather than trying to squeeze all the moral out of it. I would have liked to have pictured exactly how it happened, rather than that vague 'run. push. whoosh' - too childish, that. It seems you make the moral of the story so overpower the story itself that the story is lacking in finesse and importance and the moral is pushed off the edge of importance by its very obvious nature.

So...overall a fascinating idea to explore, but it should have been done more cleverly, with less bluntness and more imagery to get across the point, rather than making it so obvious that it came across as fake.

I think that this was a good piece. It shows the conflict that we all go through when faced with a conflict, such as this. we all need to try and start trusting our Morals and Insticts more, before it is too late. Fortunatly, in this piece, it wasn't...

So at first I was confused about what was going on, but I love how by the end I know exactly what's happened. I've never read a poem about anything close to this, so a big thumbs up on subject creativity. Some of your wording is a little strange and hard to get what you're trying to say, but by the second time, I understood more fully what you were trying to say.

Thanks for the reviews! I'm working on the wording, I understand I 'told' instead of showed you the feelings.