Why I Write Poetry
I am soaking wet
In a sweatshirt two sizes too large
And in a skin bound too tightly for me to ever fully claim as my own
Poetry is the mirror in a dingy restroom
with fluorescent lighting, a moldy ceiling
as I pull off the damp clothes that cling to me
While I stand vulnerable and shaking
in nakedness
in humanness
She is honest
I think you can only see shame when it is pitch dark.
In the daylight, you can only feel it.
It makes a fiery pit in your stomach
Spreads to your cheeks
Makes you walk two steps behind your mother coming home from the grocery store
It is hands in pockets
Eyes on the ground.
Poetry is my origami mouth
Scribbled in her folds are
Things I am too ashamed to say out loud
Things I’m not supposed to know
But know anyway
Like how I knew you were going to crash and burn
But I kept sitting in the audience anyway
I’m sorry about that
I’m not very good at speaking
I touch the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth
And it settles there
The way colonies do in foreign countries
In misunderstanding
In destruction.
I can’t count the times
I’ve played with a word in my mouth like hard candy
But I always reconsider.
And swallow hard.
Marbles of words
caught in the bottleneck bend of my throat
but no one has time for me to spit it out.
Voices and steps echo on cobblestone streets
Fists in air
Shouts for change
A stranger grabs my hand
whispers hoarsely, “Can you feel it?”
And I do.
Just in a different way.
My fists write:
Poetry is not just my voice.
She is my revolution.