REGRET

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem's strongest moment is its sustained fire-and-ashes image in the second and third stanzas. The progression from flaws "burning down the beauty inside" to "the ashes of what was once / but not is" gives the abstract feeling of regret something physical to hold onto, and the closing question about turning ashes back to "their original form" lands well because it carries that image to its logical, impossible end. That impossibility is the emotional core of the poem, and the choice to end on an unanswerable question rather than a resolution suits the subject.

The anaphora in the first stanza — "I wish I had, / I wish I did, / I wish I didn't" — is effective in miniature. The three short clauses imitate the circular, repetitive nature of regretful thinking, and the slight grammatical shift between them keeps the repetition from feeling flat.

One area to consider is the shift in address. The poem opens in the first person ("an emotion I dread"), moves into a more general second person in the second stanza ("when you could change it"), and then returns to "I" by the close. Because the most powerful lines are the personal ones, the detour into "you" and the impersonal "They say" briefly distances the speaker from the very wound the poem is exploring. Anchoring the second stanza in the first person throughout might keep the intensity unbroken.

The phrase "the kind of monster I have become to myself" carries real weight, but the line that follows it leans on a near-repetition of the opening ("the emotion I once dreaded"). Since the dread is already established in the first line, restating it here softens the impact of "monster." Trimming or replacing that restatement could let the harsher self-image stand on its own.

A few small mechanical points: "How do I come turn those ashes" appears to have an extra word, and the missing punctuation at several line ends ("now evident," "has me engulfed") leaves the reader uncertain where pauses are intended. Deciding deliberately where each stanza's sentences stop would help the rhythm match the deliberate, weighted tone the imagery is reaching for.

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This is good. Regret can debilitate us. Nice writing