i write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder,
red pen at the ready.
i’m not certain when rough drafts became a luxury
that i could no longer afford,
or why my poetry must be born fully grown
on the day i give it life.
there is no margin for error,
no safety net, no grace—
just my longing to someday see myself through my own eyes
instead of the eyes of those who wish to shrink me,
just the secrets i write and then rip to shreds,
just me and the watcher
and the race between us
to find parts of myself to circle and cross out.
10/27/25, Currently Watching, Duly Rosenberg
the watcher
The Junction Journal 
I can relate to this. When you wrote, “why my poetry must be born fully grown on the day i give it life.”, I resonated with that. That feeling of having judging eyes over your shoulders and the constant need to be perfect. Whether that be academically or otherwise. You also say, “Just me and the watcher and the race between us to find parts of myself to circle and cross out.” I am you, you are me. lol. This makes me think about how fascinating it is being our own individual people and having the rest of our lives to go, looking for the perfections and imperfections within ourselves. To me, this goes to show that we should be very nice to ourselves and give ourselves the grace, the world may not give us.
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I this is a very beautiful written piece of work. I think this short story is about wanting to be free from the shackles of always thinking you’re being perceived & watched. The author says, “i write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder, red pen at the ready.” This line makes me think the author is always trying to act a certain way or always do the right thing because they don’t know who’s watching and what they could be thinking about them. The author also says, “Just my longing to see myself through my own eyes instead of those who wish to shrink me” is a quote that really speaks to me & that I feel I can relate to because I (am a hypocrite) judge the way people talk, act, dress and do certain things, so because I do that I think everyone is doing the same to me and i’d hate to be perceived in the wrong way & so when they say that I know they mean that they just want to live their life through their own eyes, doing what they want and not through the eyes of people who could be judging them, causing the author to do the opposite.
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The first few lines of this poem really pulled me in.”I write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder” The feeling of always being watch or having a standard to adhere to is very relatable and I think many people would agree with that.This pressure lingers beyond creative writing and creates this atmosphere of being judged or thinking you will get judged. Another line that stood out to me is “i’m not certain when rough drafts became a luxury that i could no longer afford, or why my poetry must be born fully grown” This connection to drafts being luxury one can not have resonates with how others can judge based on what they see and hear.This really poses the question, Are we really who we show ourselves to be? or just a projection of what we think others would like to see.
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This blog spoke to me, especially as a freshman in college, as it captured the pressure of writing at an acceptable level and the constant need to perfect every submission. It made me think about how I, too, imagine all the possible ways my sentences could be critiqued. When you wrote, “i write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder, red pen at the ready,” it immediately reminded me of how I imagine my past teachers’ voices commenting on my work. You brought to light that those voices are really just my own thoughts after being programed to write “properly” throughout my years of schooling. I also noticed your use of straightforward and concise words which lead me to read at a quicker pace emphasized the poem’s anxious tone. Overall your poem made me reflect on how it is important and okay to keep “parts of myself” in my writing rather than conforming to the hypothetical expectations of others that I’ve created in my head.
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From the first sentence, I knew that this blog was something that I was going to feel deep connection to. When you said “i write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder, red pen at the ready.”, I can associate with that exact feeling. More specifically now that I’m in college. I feel like I second guess everything that comes into college writing whenever its time to. Talking about this also brings me to another part in your blog where you say “just me and the watcher and the race between us to find parts of myself to circle and cross out”, I love the figurative language used in this sentence. Overall this blog made me think about my writing process in a way that I had never imagined. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Your poem really stood out to me because it captured pressure of a feeling being watched or judged, which I think every one of us been through even when we are home alone doing our assignments. The line that really stood out to me the most was “”I write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder” because after this line, the tone sets immediately for the rest of the poem. I noticed that with the way this poem is so calm but at the same time the conversational language makes the poems emotion feel real.
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Your poem really spoke to me, because It shows how it feels to always be judged and makes me think about how we sometimes tried to change ourselves to fit in or to please others. The line stood out to me is when he said”just my longing to someday see myself through my own eyes instead of the eyes of those who wish to shrink me”. It is the most thing that stood out to me because it shows that sometimes you want to see yourself for who you are, and not how others people see you or judge you. It’s about accepting yourself and not letting others make you feel mad about yourself. I also like how they used words, like ” no margin for error” and ” red pen at the ready,” This show the pressure that he had to go through. It made me think about my own personal experience how sometimes I try to be perfect instead of letting myself make mistakes because I feel afraid of people judging me.
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When I read this blog post for the first time, I didn’t really have any connections to it. I don’t spend my time writing poems and I’m not really interested in reading and writing as much as others. I read it a second and a third time and thats when I realized that I felt something, a connection. I felt that this poem could me about more than writing a draft for something, and needing it to be perfect. It could be about our lives, the pressure or the need to have everything figured out, make all the correct decisions, and most importantly, make no mistakes. I feel this way a lot, and it is important for me to come back to earth from those wandering and worrying thoughts, to remember that there is still time and that we CAN make mistakes. What people might say or think should not stop anyone from trying and failure is a lesson that everyone learns.
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Hey Duly,
I really enjoyed this lovely piece about feeling as if there is a constant pressure of your work being judged, even in private. I was initially drawn to this post because of the ambiguous and mysterious title, The Watcher. I found your poem extremely relatable, I think that by nature in a school environment, we are taught to strive for perfection which sometimes conflicts with our own creativity. It is like there is a battle between writing according to a rubric versus what feels natural to us. It often feels unnerving to present work that is authentically you out of fear of being judged and in my experience, that pressure is much more intense in higher education.
The opening line “i write as if someone is always reading over my shoulder, red pen at the ready.” grabbed my interest because of the imagery surrounding the “red pen”. That line instantly makes my mind jump to getting back a paper only to find it’s full of revisions that although may be useful, they can feel like a mark of defeat. This is something I struggle with where I can sometimes take criticism too harshly which is why I found it very relatable. I’m not sure if the lowercase I’s were intentional but I perceived it as very personable as a way to see your inner-monologue with yourself.
Even writing this comment, I feel as if there is a watcher who can critique my words, judging my interpretation of this poem.
-Emmett
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