Poetry Is...

Poetry Is...

Poetry is those thoughts you can't say,

Those things you reserve for maudlin times,

When the booze cruises through your veins,

And you allow yourself to feel.

Feel the shame

the hate

the loss

the sadness.

Talk about your trees,

Talk about your rainbows,

Talk about your smiles and your love,

Masturbate on your own eyes.

That ain't poetry.

Poetry is the opposite.

The self-loathing,

The thought that you could have done something,

Or done something more.

Poetry is pain wordified,

Turned into communication.

Poetry is tears translated.

I feel it, burning, hidden, denied.

The words I couldn't say

become my muscles,

striate my heart,

consume me,

and lead me to the end.

I pick them up and carry them on my back,

like we all do,

another in a long stream of things that we all feel.

I am not special,

Never was,

Never will be.

Unique... a misnomer

These are only the things in my heart,

Poetry their only commodity.

Hidden behind the lies I tell to myself to others.

The lies we all tell,

A oneness crafted from loss.

This is poetry.