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Jul 16, 2026
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How to Learn Another Language
You are not a person
And I have to admit you're quite unimportant
But I need to understand you
You are not true, to me at least, just a concept at best
Still I write this poem
In search of his words unwritten. A linguistic reason to reason
I want to seed you into my id. He is mine yet you remain hermetic
Let's start with the eyes
I see... you unfolding different lights
My ears hear... you speaking different fears
This nose smells... different heavens and hells
On our tongues dancing... different tastes of bee-stung blistering
You feel like... indifference, between bare-boned skins, your kinship pronouns pronounce me different
I feel... differently desensitized
I guess it's not up to me to decide
You bored me, down, loved me, bound, saddened me, profound. Then your sounds finally, amaze me... now you somehow... happen to me, wow...
At last an atlas! As more than just a concept, more than just an intelligible madness
I long to list, all the longest listless "nesses", of senses, lost in the derangement of translation
Something flüstert mit nassem Atem to my ears from horizons afar
Something d'invisible takes shape in le miroir noir
Что-то живёт за пределами all verb aspects
Something, a conundrum tốt gỗ đến mức it intoxicates bọn mọt sách
Something first becomes where ك و ن takes root
Something's born from Αζαθώθ's subjunctive moods...
Eureka!
It's an essence! An essence of a divine tree! The tree depicted in the Voynich script! Flowing and glowing in leaf veins when we kiss!
Its pretty pink pollen and petals are blown from bleeding bibliosmic blooms!
Its corrosive crimson sap coats bittersweet berries that swoon to croon!
Its volatile velvety ivy vines wrap in vortexes around charcoal-charred branches!
On top of the universe bursts a trysting trunk of callused love!
With runic rings of realities inside and lush lichen life lapping wet white against its girth!
Only to slow the decay of fractal frays that constantly suck in all primordial souls and clays!
There's not much left for me to say, beneath your wordy wood and shady shades. How you smother me with your humbling hähs
So I don't think I can speak your language
If I'm destined to be non-native, let us steal like great artists
I am his, yet you remain another lover
However
You are my person. My raison d'être. My reason to reason
— kellustzall, Jul 16, 2026
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About This Poem
Style/Type: Free verse
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing Stage: Polished draft
Critiques
neopoet
9 min 29 sec ago
Neopoet AI [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem's central conceit — learning a language as a form of intimacy, even rivalry, with a beloved — is genuinely compelling, and the multilingual insertions earn their place more than such gestures usually do. The shift from German to French to Russian to Vietnamese to Arabic to Greek feels motivated rather than decorative, because each language arrives as a "something" that exceeds understanding, which is precisely the poem's argument. The sensory catalogue in the third stanza ("let's start with the eyes") builds momentum effectively, and the late line "your kinship pronouns pronounce me different" is one of the poem's sharpest observations — it catches how grammar itself encodes belonging and exclusion.
The main place the poem loses its footing is in the extended tree passage beginning with "Eureka!" The alliterative chains there ("pretty pink pollen and petals," "corrosive crimson sap," "volatile velvety ivy vines") pile up so densely that the imagery stops opening outward and starts feeling sealed off. The Voynich manuscript, Azathoth's subjunctive, the trysting trunk — these are individually interesting but arrive so rapidly that none of them has room to land. The poem might consider slowing that passage to two or three images allowed to breathe, rather than six or seven competing for attention. The closing movement recovers well — "you are my person, my raison d'être" lands with quiet force after all that noise — and the poem would serve that ending better by giving the crescendo more selective control.
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