Poetry is Deceitful

Poetry is deceitful Poetry is a lie Why do I write poetry? To disguise and hide the real me Poetry to me isn’t liberating or freeing or any other cliché Poetry is a mask the writer gets to put on to prevent the reader from truly knowing her Who am I? I can guarantee you my poetry won’t tell you Because of poetry, I am a mystery inside of a locked box in a ship 1,000 feet below the Earth Because of poetry, I walk through life with a dishonest smirk on my face “Which ‘you’ will I get today?” asks the reader “All of me and none of me,” I reply With my poetry, I lie, fake emotions, and fabricate the truth and because of poetry, who will ever know this? Poetry is the beauty and the evil in the world The graciousness and the wickedness And the equity and the malevolence Poetry is in the way we walk, the way we talk, and the way we see Poetry is in our actions, in our works, and in our relations with one another Poetry is the noblest evil out there Poetry is me. But is this truly poetry to me?