till the very end

Love love love this!

My first impression was that this poem has a ballad-like quality to it. The repetition gives it the feeling of a refrain, the speaker is trying to convince themself of something. I like how the title/ concept of “Avoidance” is personified as this intimate figure: a friend, a lover, sort of a protector, but also someone who is quietly leading the speaker somewhere dangerous.

What stood out to me first was the contradiction in how Avoidance is portrayed. On one hand, She seems comforting :

with thread, needle piercing, my skin did She mend.

and

the devil innate in me, off does She fend.

These lines suggest that Avoidance helps the speaker survive something. She 'mends' them and keeps something worse away, so the attachment to her makes emotional sense. Avoidance isn’t presented as obviously evil from the start, which I think adds nuance. It feels less like 'avoidance is bad' and more like 'avoidance was once useful, but has become consuming,' e.g. Her slow egging of the speaker on.

At the same time, the poem keeps hinting that this relationship is destructive. I particularly liked :

so we burned all my bridges where rivers do bend.

This image works well because bridges already imply connection or crossing over into something new. Burning them makes the destruction feel strategic, that Avoidance is cutting off not just the speaker’s present connections but also any possible turning point. The rhyme also gives the line a smoothness that contrasts with how damaging the action is.

I also thought the repeated use of 'Her' with a capital H was interesting. It makes Avoidance feel powerful, divine or mythic, which fits the speaker’s devotion to her. The speaker seems aware that she is harmful--'my lover deceives' and 'pernicious promise' make that clear--but still keeps returning to her. That tension is probably my favorite part of the poem! It captures how a coping mechanism can become a relationship, where the speaker knows it hurts them but also feels protected by it.

A technical thing I liked was the consistent rhyme on the -end sound. It creates a sense of inevitability and everything is being pulled toward the same conclusion. Since so many lines rhyme with 'friend,' 'mend,' 'lend,' 'tend,' 'fend,' 'descend,' 'amend,' 'end,' it makes the poem feel trapped in its own pattern--which suits the subject of avoidance really well. The speaker can’t escape the rhyme, just as they can’t quite escape Avoidance, so to say.

That said, because the rhyme is so consistent, a few lines feel like they might be bending their wording a little to preserve the rhythm :

kissed Her and told Her my lips shall i lend.

and

the devil innate in me, off does She fend.

I understand what both lines mean, but the phrasing feels archaic or inverted compared to some of the more natural lines. This can work if you want the poem to feel formal/ ritualistic, but it did make me pause a bit. Maybe that’s something to think about: do you want the voice to feel like a spell/ ballad, or more like a direct confession? Either option could work, but smoothing a couple of these inversions could even out the poem.

I was also intrigued by :

further and further down does She descend.

At first I wondered whether She is descending, or whether the speaker is descending because of her. Since the next section mentions the speaker’s lifeline hitting a dead end, I interpreted it as both: Avoidance sinks deeper into the speaker, and the speaker sinks deeper with her. If that double meaning is intentional, I like it a lot. If not, you could maybe make the direction of the descent a little clearer, e.g. elaborating on Avoidance outside of the speaker's view of Her.

Overall : Lovely poem! I thought it was very atmospheric, and the repeated rhyme gives the poem a fatalistic, spiraling sense that was effective.

I hope this helps you! xx