Enlightened

[RiverNotch]

Sadly, this reads like a collection of self-help screeds, occasionally broken up into lines but most often just left alone, rather than an actual poem. I think such a mode can work if it builds to something, if it describes something that's actually dramatic, or if it's entirely ironic, but I don't detect any of those here. The mode never changes across the work, there is not enough specificity for drama ("emancipated from the chains of the male gaze" is something one should expect from the critic, not the poet), and there is no indication that anything here wasn't meant in earnest.

A good start on revising this would be to focus on what specifics there are here, or rather what specifics presumably drew the speaker into uttering this, since there are not many specifics here that don't read as tired (those first two lines, "catcall me", "chains....shackles"): maybe describe an episode where the speaker is subjected to catcalling. Another potential start is to choose one of the tired specifics and really run with it: describe how one can roll out one's wrists, tying in your head---not in your text!---every detail to an aspect of liberation from the male gaze, then only at the end adding some hint as to what the speaker actually spoke about. Either way, this sorely needs revision, or really some rethinking.