I'm From Poetry

I am from Poetry

I am from linguistic discovery.

I am from childhood creativity;

getting lost with companions like Seuss and Frost.

I am from syllable counts and

line breaks,

literary devices littering every page.

I am from free-verse, spoken word,

narrative and closed forms,

sonnets, soliloquies, punk rock, haikus,

rhythm and blues, limericks and tattoos.

I am from the influence of music and words branded on my youth,

strewn across spiral-bound composition notebooks as proof of a culture craving creativity,

and I’m merely a creature of curiosity that manipulates words into tools to grasp at understanding. What I understand is that

If I am not from poetry,

I am not me.

I am not.