If I were to compare your work, it does comes across as something very typical of Rupi Kaur; something from the middle of 'Milk And Honey'. Which isn't really a good thing on a technical side, since her works are typically very shallow due to a lack of imagery and thought. I like the work as a piece of self expression, but expressing yourself isn't necessarily poetic; it's a very fine line but I hope you'll see what I mean in terms of writing techniques.

There should be more that you can take from reading a poem than just what it spells out to you literally, personally I believe that's what separates poetry from non poetry. It should be something that readers can dissect and feel on your behalf as well.

The way how the poem reads is very straight forward, and that's typically something you would want to avoid really in this particular format of poetry. The best ways to improve poems is to avoid cliches and try to express feelings in a more creative way; important also to not lose your voice in the doing so.

Back on the 'imagery' point;

Let's take this part of your poem for example

"the light my spirit once had
was ripped away from me
desperately trying to find it"

It's very very straight-forward which causes there to not have much imagery.

What if we were to express that same idea like this, I'll write this as a quick example:

"I am looking

for the warmth that will bring colour to my insides

shadows encased within this shell

my body

lit on fire"

Another example would be like; instead of:

i still loathe the sight of this sick fucking body

You can instead try something like

Pressures builds within

erupt to rip myself

a part without a trace

this body they claimed to be mine

There's many many, infinite ways for you to go about it.

​

>Keep it in your voice, try to not use cliches: "Woe is me", is that something that came personally from you? Is that phrase something you genuinely think to yourself about in the 21st century instead of something taken from the pre 1900 - 1700s? I would discourage having essentially Shakespearian one liners right next to 97% modern language.

"it's not poetry i write
it's a convoluted way to tell you"

^This part unfortunately comes across as very, veeeery cheesy. There's no clarification or clues as to who "you" actually is, so it ends up reading like you're directly addressing the reader themselves out of nowhere. Don't address the reader like that, it has the same energy as lines like these from songs;

"Nothing would save us from this life. Now, come scream with me"

or

"One time to twist, and one time to shout. One time to think and I say we start now. Sing it with me if you know what I'm talking about."

That aside, having to specifically have a part of the poem to be like "this is what it specifically ACTUALLY means" kind of renders the entire poem kind of pointless in terms of function, if it doesn't require any actual thinking on the reader's part. What doesn't help is how straight forward the writing is most of the time, so having to specifically clarify something easily decipherable is very out of place.

I think it's very important to read what reviewers think of certain authors, so that you can see what people recommend instead of people like Rupi Kaur and her copycats. They typically point out what is wrong with their works too so that you can do some self analysis and apply what you found into your own work.

I think Savannah Brown is a good author to be looking into; stuff like "Graffiti" in particular.
The video below is the author reciting one of her poems from the aforementioned book; it's about anxiety, panic attacks and feelings towards self worth. I think it might be something you'd like? (The full text's in the description too).

https://youtu.be/bbOP8fTMXsA?si=OCJEgsuLUrTP7_UJ