Thank You

Mouthing words as my eyes stumbled forward

The sentences were utterly heartbreaking

Yet The murmur of a smile

Could not be stripped from my face

There was such radiance to be found

In all that sadness

Poetry taught me the beauty of connection

To someone else's raw emotion

Stripped of the thick covers

Of heavy plot and sentence structure

That make things logical

Easily understood

Protected

Left there instead

Gently wrapped in thin metaphors

A weak armor

So easily torn 

Leaving nothing but an ache in your chest

Rather than a sadness in your mind

There is a magic to it

Laying still on my bed

Staring at my ceiling

At a point where tears no longer offer relief

Poetry taught me the beauty of connection

To my own emotions

Not easily focused on

Almost numb

But when poems started growing in my head

At first annoying

Keeping me up at night

I could begin to explain my heart

To my confused and frustrated self

In ways that only planned intertwined moments

Of hushed silence before words begin again

Can express

In ways that only poetry

Can express

There are still poems I will never show to anyone

They are for me

Just for me

I finish reading and look into the room of people

It is silent

I hear someone mutter wow under their breath

And it makes my heart explode

More than any of the clapping that follows

I had written a poem about science class

It was a small little presentation for family

I still think about that moment

Every time I write

Poetry taught me the beauty of connection

To others

Using my own words

Getting to watch my emotions

Mirrored on their faces

Getting to watch someone

Find themselves

In my whirlwind of adjectives

From being able to express something

Someone else has never felt they could express

Giving them comfort in my letters

To simply Making them laugh

Watching reactions

That in that moment

Only I could create

Gives me a taste of power and strength

I can find nowhere else

Poetry taught me the beauty of connection

And I want to say thank you

But I don't know how

So I wrote her this

I hope she likes it