poet

here is the other thing i wrote...also wanting to read it...let me know...

i tell people i am a writer

it sounds solid like i produce things

things of substance

i WRITE things

novels

stories

things that take up some space

i call myself a poet under my breath

a whispered word in the corners

poets are frivolous

stringing flowery sentiments

with verbosity

simile

metaphor

hyperbole

what i want to scream is

that poetry

is a metaphor

the only way i know

to put my guts on display

to harvest the deepest parts of myself

and beg to be seen

there are no characters

in my poems

just me scraped raw

see me here

covered in these words

like bandages

i am pouring myself

out onto paper

with no regard for sentence structure

and oxford commas

i want vocative commas

and my throat tight

around words

i am scared to speak

i want words pouring

from my mouth

in pulsing rhythms

like the vein i

just tapped to spray

myself in red

on the wall

i am not sitting in room

full of people in black

high-necked shirts

waiting for them to snap

their fingers in some

hipster mating call of

approval

i am here

to pull out my mess

and translate it

into a stanza

for you

i am not here to call myself a writer

i am here to

bleed my life onto paper

to build a rescue

ladder of words

to save myself

and my beating

open heart

from a world bent

on its destruction

counting on its silence

i am a poet because

anything else is

a lie my skin cannot bare

i whisper the word poet

because

it is me

and all the bleeding words

i can scream

won’t save me

if that one goes

unsaid