You were right. I did not find any bullshit in that dose of poetry.

Poetry can stand on its own. Giving it an instagram-filtered backdrop and typing it in some font that's supposed to make it 'gritty', won't make a poem better or worse to anyone only interested in the poetry. But you probably know that bookish white girls who like 'smart' things will only poetry when it's presented like that, and they're basically you're only audience when writing a blog, so I understand the necessity.

Anyway, I get the impression you've been reading a lot of Bukowski. Your content and style are very similar to his, which isn't a bad thing. You write like Bukowski, yeah, but you do it well.

If you're like me, you'll imitate Bukowski until another writer blows your mind, and then you'll write like them. Eventually, if you stick with it long enough, you'll develop a style of your own.

It's obvious that you're idealized with these rebellious, off-the-rails, go-fuck-yourself writers. And that's fine. We all idealize people when we're young. We're narcissistic enough to think that we could do what they do, and we have to be. We have to at least try.

You're going to look back one day and cringe at your 'no bullshit' attitude, the artsy backgrounds, the tough fonts. But i cringe a shit i did this morning so you're fine.

What you've got going for you is that you're a poet. Most people have an idea of what a poem should be, and they write according to that standard. If they haven't seen it done before, then they can't write about it. They don't know how to funnel the world into words.

You do. You imitate Bukowski, but you don't hide behind it or anything else. It's not tied together, you're not there yet, but there are some really brilliant lines in there. And they're raw. They're not designed or cliche. That's the way they were in your head, and that's how they turned out on paper. They're not anything you can quote. You probably don't even realize you did it. They're just indications that you think of language in a way that very few people do.

You're vague when you need to be, and crystal when you don't. You let the reader glimpse the emotion or whatever, give them a taste, and then leave. That works in poetry if you do it right, and you seem well on your way.

Your voice is interesting. It's the actions and emotions intertwined. It's like you give us the words, and let us decide what to do with them. And the pacing and short length go along well with that. Like you're telling us a story that seems like it should be longer but doesn't need to be.

I hate blogs, inherently. I feel like it gives people an influence over me, and i don't like that. Very few people know i write at all, and I've shown almost no one. It seems like a person can be more honest, bold, and experimental when they write under the impression that no one will ever see it. With a blog they'll have other people in mind, they won't be writing for themselves anymore, which is the only reason worth writing. So my advice would be to delete your blog.

As for the writing, keep doing. Read different poets, even the ones that put you to sleep in school. Go to poemhunter.com and read they're most popular poem. Eventually, you'll be repeating lines in your head all day because you memorized their poem without realizing it. And then you'll write the same way they do. Write as much as you can. About anything. Good or bad, so bad it makes you cringe the next day.

Also, revise. Take a poem you're proud of, don't touch it for 2 weeks or so, and then come back and rewrite it. Chances are, there will be parts you like and ones you don't. Fix them. Nothing big. Just tweak the sentences, move a word here or there, change an adverb. You'll come to understand your own style. You'll know what makes your style good. You'll know the things that you should do less often or not at all.

And once you're that good, you'll realize that good writing can only be written by people with MFAs because they were taught the right way to write by someone else. Then your dreams will go away. And you'll wonder why you ever thought you were that special in the first place.