Young Writers Society

I read the description and it said this was an experiment, so I wanted to see if I could pick out what the experiment was. My guess is that you're playing with line breaks and the juxtaposition between ending a line with something, and starting the next line with the same idea.

I get this from things like this:

...They’re irrational,
Just like me.
Nonsensical—these things that have reins I can’t see,

What's happened here is "Just like me" is both related to being irrational, which it syntactically is combined with, and "nonsensical" which is so close to it in the area of the poem, and it is read just after that it connects.

If this is your trial, I'd say half of it is successful. I did like the juxtaposition between the two ideas. I really got into the swing of that, but at the same time you have something falling flat as you continue to have line capitalization instead of sentence capitalization, or a lack of capitalization in your poetry. I'll drop this Capitalization in Poetry article off for you to check out, and then go over what I think is important for you.

Right now your poem is jolting, like car that is being driven by a cautious driver who slams on the breaks every time they try to stop. The reason being that some of the lines are longer, and a lot of them are short, but they all start with capitals. When we stop at the end of a short line, we are trying to continue with the pattern of hard stops that you set up at the beginning. The fact alone that you seem to end the sentences and end the line makes us think that at the end of the line, it might be the end of a sentence. Then to have the capitalization on the next line, our minds can read in periods that aren't here. If you take out the capitalization, it's going to be a much smoother read because we'll have a second cue to tell us when to stop.

That's not to say that line capitalization is bad, or not something you should do, or can do, it's just that with such a variety of line lengths, and so many short lines, it isn't the best for reading smoothly.

Onto the review.

I feel like you were holding back in this. You really could have gone all out on one metaphor and dug into the ideas and the theory about just that thing, but instead we have a smattering of metaphors here. For instance at the beginning of the poem for a little while we are dealing with this metaphor of a beast that can have reins,

Nonsensical—these things that have reins I can’t see,
Unanswerable but to their own, and no voice of mine

This section is a little iffy for me because "their own" refers to something that goes unnamed, but we go right into that it doesn't answer to you instead of clarifying what it is that it is answerable to. This could just be a missed word, or a word you felt was implied, but it needs a little attention.

I think for the most part the areas where you go two or three lines with a metaphor are alright. In tally, we have beasts with reins, flying, paths, a fighter, scars, baggage, lone wolf, dragon, fire, rider, [fire again], [sky again] and in total they don't intermix that much. Both the fire and the sky come back around which is good, but these other speckled metaphors could be condensed or replaced with ones that go back to the real argument of a fight between a beast and a fiery flying you.

After that I only have a few other nitpicks.
These sections could use some work. I can clearly see that this is a structural thing you're doing since the entire poem is this Long, Long, Long, short, Long, short pattern, but I don't like it really.

Let me get specific.

I’ve fought them, I’ve reasoned, and they’ve not
Gone away.
No merit of intellect can sway them. They’re irrational,
Just like me.

This seems very cut and dry, "Gone away" having it's own line has some merit to it because it is away from it's neighboring words. At the same time the issue here I have here is that it would look and sound better with some enjambment to support continuing on. "Gone away." and "Just like me." are such stiff lines that they end coldly, and we have to continue onwards on our own two feet so to speak, instead of being led along. If you put "gone away" right before "no merit" then we would continue reading the line because it is the line.

Despite my best
Attempts,
They strike me, bite me, fight me, and drag me from
The clouds.

Attempts doesn't need it's own line. There is nothing really special about it, actually it indicates failure of mentality because of the silly quote "I do not try, I do."
The clouds is such a commonplace word set, that it really isn't interesting enough to be on it's own. If you had an adjective in there which we were not used to seeing, and we had something to ponder over as we moved on, then it would be more worth wile in it's own line.

There’s these hormones raging in me blasting out their
Own path.
And it’s only ‘cause I’m lonely that I’m steering down
This path.

This just shows a repeated word, which actually bothers me. I feel like this should all just be one sentence and have it broken into two or three lines so that you can drop one of the paths, because reusing a word so close together like that, and then having both of them as separate lines is too much. It feels forced and disingenuous.

So let me stride like a fighter, taking down these feelings
Of mine,
‘Cause I’ve got scars I can’t hide from everyone I used
To love.

Of mine does not serve that much of a substantial role. We already know the feelings are the speakers, otherwise we missed some key lines like, "raging hormones." That means you can drop the "of mine" from the sentence all together and it will still make sense.
"So let me stride like a fighter, taking down these feelings
'cause I've got scars I can't hide from everyone I used to love."
breaking up to love from the rest of it is sort of weird because it leaves the line before it weak. "I used..." is inviting people to imagine what you used. Was it a bat, a sword, a club? and then we go to "to love" and it's that moment of "oh, how off I was."

Fated for better or worse to be solitary, I ride
Alone
Because nobody else will have me. And that’s
Just fine.

"And that's" another case of a weak ending to a line because the real meat of it is on the next line. Having alone as it's own line is somewhat strange, although it can be supported because alone is, well, alone. Having I ride hanging is a little more iffy because we will begin to think of nouns, which can be ok. You have to decide how you want to have your readers read it.

I’ve burned far too many faces, just by opening
My mouth.
So I’ll save them all from danger, by shutting my
Self out.

Breaking up "my" and "self" is not a good idea. It is one unit "myself" just like "herself" and "themselves" but if you break it up to my and self, then you're talking about a much more metaphysical concept than just me. It's like saying I own me instead of closing me out.
Just by opening is the same as the rest of these with it being a little weak and needing the cap of "my mouth" to make it strong.

I will be a little bolder, fly a little higher in
The cold.
The temperature reminds me emotions can’t be
Trusted.

I think these are really beautiful lines, but they need to be together again. I am sounding really repetitive, so I'm just going to leave it at this:

When you're breaking things up, leave strong words at the end of lines like "love" and "life" or "fighter" instead of words like "and" "be" "in" or verbs that need direct objects like "threw."

Overall I think this is a pretty strong poem. You might want to go in and edit the code so that you've got the whole thing together. It might make it a bit more manageable. Otherwise, I do like the message. It packs a real punch, You just need to fiddle with the structure for it to be even stronger. Fiddling with the metaphors is sort of a secondary thing, and more something to try the next time than something to fix on this one.

Knight r4 here to review Dragon. I certainly hope this helps

Lone wolf and a dragon, I’m quite the fiery guy.

This is like my favorite line of the entire poem.

I can't really find any nit-picks (as is to be expected with you). But I don't really like the title. I think you could replace "sex" with love. You shouldn't have sex with someone unless you are already married.

The general content of the poem was alright. I like that you had a more depressed POV though you still had some humor and a small glimmer of hope in it. This certainly has a completely different outlook on life and romance than you did in "Lacuna". This is good since it gives you more of a well rounded writing style rather than just fantasy or fiction. So overall I must say good job! I would give you about four stars for the poem itself. Well I guess that is all I have to say.Happy writing!!!

Ps. Oh by the way I am not sure if the instances when you had one or two words in a line or when you started a new sentence without starting a new line were intentional or not, though I thought I should mention it just in case it was an error on your part.