I am afraid that my mouth is a tomb in which only dead things live

 

I have written 38 poems, that’s 32,862 words 175,292 letters, and I can't tell you what the have done.

My teachers always told me words have power, 

and I've been thinking because though it's not wrong it has an inconsistency, 

it's not just words that have power, 

bullets have powers,

 guns have power,

 drugs have power,

 people have power, the wrong people are in power 

and power what is that?

because I've written 38 poems, 

and nothing has changed.

And if words have power, where does that power go in the silence left over?

 because is dormant power not weakness 

does it not crumble and fall like a fortress that has never been used,

Does it not sit at the back of your throat growing acrid from the air that flows over it.

we come up here and bare our souls 

we have been broken and put together 

and are re-breaking ourselves in front of you for what.

 So you can rate our pain?

 decide how eloquent our mental illnesses are based on 3 minutes, 

and if the pen truly is mightier than the sword 

how do so many people walk off this stage still bleeding, 

still broken,

They say the blind shouldn't lead the blind, so why do we ask the cracked to Shepard the crushed because

 I have written 175,292 letters

And I am not cut out for this, 

You know I'm still scared to walk down the street at night,

 to breathe to loudly next to a police officer, 

See I have written 32,862 words in the entirety of my lifetime

 So I call myself a performance poet yet most days I'm too terrified to speak up. 

And what a pathetic oxymoron that is. 

Because some days I'm sick of hearing my own voice, like snipers tire of listening to the echo of their own weapons firing 

and i wonder how many times I’m going to have to shoot my words at you before someone finally bleeds with me. 

We've written so many poems, and at times I wonder why we don't just give up, 

Because You can't imagine how it must feel pouring your life force into something that refuses to stop being dead, 

you see poets are the people who have dedicated their lives to turning paper back into trees.

So its no wonder we feel so powerless

When I keep trying to fix the world with my words,

 I come back more shattered pieces than human. 

I finally realize why they say talk is cheap,

 because I keep spending my self on humanity, 

only to realize that soul saving cost more tongues that I have,

 more dialects than I have learned. 

See everyone says helping one person is enough.

But they don't understand that saving one life in a world not worth living is like growing a sunflower knowing that it will only ever rain. 

Umbrellas are powerless against a hurricane.

And words mean nothing when no one is listening.

So tell me, are you listening?