Role Models

[Weeded]

I saw myself,
as I am and was
your little nuances
engrained in the divots
like sand in the epidermis-
unbothering to a sunbather
gently losing you,
like sand off the beach.

I'm aware now
copacetic in the cabana
Kabbalah as my witness.

[dukealien]

I saw myself,
as I am and was
your little nuances
engrained in the divots
like sand in the epidermis-
unbothering to a sunbather
gently losing you,
like sand off the beach.

I'm aware now
copacetic in the cabana
Kabbalah as my witness.

In moderate critique, have to say I was entertained and confused by this one.  In particular, the faint line between poem and signature caused me to, at first, include "how thoughtful" as a last line... but, to work.

The title is essential - without it, reader might veer off into thoughts of lovers, etc..  Tempted to recommend a punctuation mark (colon, semicolon, or em-dash) at the end of l.2 to hint at the degree of subsidiarity of what follows, but leaving just the line break gives readers another option ("nuances engrained" as if there were a comma after "engrained").

"[U]nbothering" seems, frankly, a bit clumsy.  Won't make a suggestion except that it needs replacement, perhaps by a standard word or phrase, perhaps with another made-up one, but better.

"Kabbalalh" in the ultimate line has a huge number of possible associations, most of them outside my education/culture.  Taken as an inner, secret god (or G_d) it's a serious twist of an ending.  I read it as implying (being secret), "*only* Kabbalah as witness" - a shaking-off of tradition/genetics/culture but retaining it as a sort of hidden touchstone.  And ?not? resenting it.  The "aware" awakening is the key to the second stanza, no longer constrained or traumatized even a little by the tradition.  Except, of course, that it's still in there watching, the viewpoint voice just knows about it now.

Sorry this is more commentary than critique; I have few suggestions.  Hope they're helpful.

[alonso ramoran]

Weeded,

I really liked the flow of this poem. It feels very to the point. After reading multiple times though, I did have some comments/questions about the poem that I'll go through line by line:

I saw myself, I'm sure this line could go without the comma
as I am and was using "saw" in the previous line and "am" in this one creates some confusion with the tenses. Did the N see themselves as they are in the current moment, meaning they envisioned a future for themselves that they will have already attained? You could possibly make this more apparent by rewriting "as I am today, and was..." I also like the line break at "was"; it leaves the reader open to interpret it as the N feeling connected to who they were in the present moment while having their aspirations at the same time. Though, in the following line it kinda contradicts this line I think, which is interesting.
your little nuances
engrained in the divots I don't understand the use of "divots" here. As in roofing for cottages or the marks on turf left by golf clubs? What does either have to do with the poem?
like sand in the epidermis- "in" or "on"? also, why not just say skin?
unbothering to a sunbather
gently losing you, so far, I'm still unclear on who "you" is
like sand off the beach. nice simile, but in such a short poem where two similes involve sand, I find myself comparing the two and I find this one more evocative and a more effective comparison. Maybe you could find another way to convey what you were trying to in L5?

I'm aware now
copacetic in the cabana
Kabbalah as my witness. The ending falls flat for me. It might just be context that I'm missing, but I'm lost on how this ties the poem together and how this relates back to the title "Role Models". Maybe a different title is needed?

Thank you for the read,
Alex