I adore this piece. As well as being a great attempt at compressed poetry (although 'attempt' feels like the wrong word entirely), it is evocative, thought-provoking, filled with mixed emotions and interpretations and has a rhythm that feels just so comfortable and well-written to me. I read it as a soliloquy within a story; the imagery in the second stanza in particular was very vivid and raw, and I felt every emotion of the writer from their forced tolerance and holding back from what they really want to say, to what I felt was an eventual surrender. It was powerful.

I also adore your use of capitalisation, as poetry that tells a story but uses capital letters on every line is a secret 'pet hate' of mine. I personally would have started the first line of each stanza with a capital to distinguish between 'chapters' of the story, but that is more to do with personal style. Without the capitalisation within the stanzas, the pace flows so much more sharply and the emphasis on the single word lines really jumped out at me. I adored resolute / but unsettling / very. Just magical.

My only critique would be that I feel speak / out in the first stanza should be on the same line, rather than separate; unlike the rest of the piece, I felt a little less could do with a little more emphasis and the single lines previous to it took away the 'spotlight' by unsettling the rhythm. There was a little jolt here that I didn't feel anywhere else in the poem. Apart from this, I enjoyed every word. Keep up the incredible work.