No longer a poet

I use to be a poet

Stringing words and rhymes together.

Letting my teenage heart spill its emotions.

I’d write in verse or in prose.

In tune or rhyme.

I like to be like Dickinson.

And make the first line be the title.

Speak of madness and speak in symbols.

Sometimes I’d be like Plath.

Dark and emotional.

So clearly in pain.

I liked to speak like Kafka!

Metaphors my justices and magic realism my game.

And then I grew older and poet those poems away.

So ashamed of the silly poems I wrote.

So ashamed that when I tried to be a poet again. I always called them shitty and dumb.

I wasn’t following rules

I wasn’t truly making words match or rhyme.

I tried iambic pentameter but I was not Marlowe.

I tried to make them speak words but I was not Shakespeare either.

I couldn’t be romantic. I was always a sad poet.

I couldn’t be political. I used my emotions.

So I boxed up my voice and talked in essays.

Not even realizing that in my rhetoric… I was still a worker or words.

I met Rushdie. And I fell in love

Magic realism re-established something in me.

Then I met Rumi. And was enhanced.

Now I look in the mirror and see that in their voices I am me.

I meet them all along the way.

And I my voice came back.

I’m not a wannabe

Not a sappy sop

I am a poet if my own kind.

Still a master of words and maker of prose.