desensitization

Hello!

it begins
a rare excursion
done in mild disgust
and guilt.
awkward.
uncomfortable.

I like the discomfort you're building here, though "done in mild disgust" reads a little awkwardly to me. An excursion can be taken or made, but "done" feels less natural. You could perhaps say "taken in mild disgust" instead. I also think "awkward" and "uncomfortable" are similar enough that having both doesn't add much unless you want the repetition to feel deliberately halting.

you create innocent excuses
to let it slip through
your once-narrow standards

"Once-narrow standards" confused me a little because narrow standards don't necessarily sound positive. It can suggest that someone was limited or close-minded rather than disciplined. I think you're trying to say that the narrator once had stricter boundaries, so "once-rigid standards" or "once-firm boundaries" might communicate that more clearly.

forgetting that habits possess as much power over you
as anything
ever did.

I like the idea here but "as anything ever did" is quite broad and vague. It feels like it's reaching for something dramatic without telling what the habit is being compared to. That may be intentional, especially if this is about addiction generally, but a more specific comparison could give the line greater significance.

you have become resistant to it,
somehow your body is surviving
with this virus consuming you,
no antibodies even trying
to fight it off.

This is where I think the imagery becomes muddled. The previous metaphor is about erosion and then you move quite suddenly into disease. Both images work separately, but using them so close together makes the poem feel as though it's searching for different ways to describe the same thing rather than developing one central image.

"Resistant" also seems to conflict with the virus metaphor. If the narrator has become resistant to it, that suggests the body can fight it, but the next lines say that no antibodies are trying. I think you may mean numb to it or accustomed to it rather than resistant.

and so you stare at yourself--
this unrecognizable being,
tides of shame and regret and--
tracing back your past

The repeated dashes make this feel appropriate, but "tides of shame" brings the sea imagery back after the virus metaphor and adds to that sense of competing comparisons. I think the poem would be stronger if you committed more fully to either erosion or infection.

The grammar around "tides of shame and regret and-- / tracing back your past" is also hard to follow. It feels as though a thought has been interrupted, but what follows doesn't quite complete the sentence. That may be intentional, but I think it needs a little tightening so the emotional fragmentation doesn't become actual confusion.

***

I think you've captured the way a harmful habit can enter someone's life gradually and become normal before they fully recognise what it's doing to them. The second-person perspective works well because it makes the poem feel both accusatory and intimate, as though the narrator is confronting a past version of themselves while also warning the reader. I also like the bracketed line about having already taken the bait because it suggests that the outcome is beginning before this person understands the danger.

I'd consider giving readers one or two clues about the actual habit, though. It doesn't need to be named directly, especially if you want the poem to apply to different kinds of dependency, but something like that could make the guilt feel more personal.

Cheers!

Lipton

When I first read the title I thought this would be about media desensitization since that's what I personally have experienced a lot of. However, I think what you wrote here is akin to drug abuse or sex? Or maybe some other easily addicting thing like social media?

I like how each line, each stanza gradually descends faster and faster until the end point, kinda reflecting how really anything changes a person's behavior and reactions to things over time. In addition to that, I also like how

you have become resistant to it,
somehow your body is surviving
with this virus consuming you,
no antibodies even trying
to fight it off.

encapsulates becoming addicted and desensitized to a drug or stimulus to the point where you don't have a reaction to this negative thing despite it still having a real impact on your health, really reminds me of doom scrolling and it's effects (which is the closest thing I can relate back to it cause I don't usually take any substances.

As for suggestions on improvement, I don't really have any aside from maybe take into count the syllables in your lines.