I don't know if I'm a poet

I don’t know if I’m a poet

I never tell anyone that I’m a poet.

For me, that’s something that people call you not something you claim.

I don’t talk about writing and if someone looks over my shoulder,

I will get belligerent.

“How dare you steal these blood soaked words with your greedy eyes and sour breath, don’t you have a trend to follow or a lie to tell?”

Poetry is intensely personal for me,

and if I want to share a poem with you, I will recite it through smoke rings and a sandpaper throat until I can see the emotion I felt when I wrote it, on your face.

If I’m gonna bleed, I want it to count.

No casual references to heavy, tear-filled lines I wrote while knee deep in handed down sorrow.

There will be no free bees.

I don’t know if I’m a poet but these words were hot coals burning me up from the inside, and to recite them,

not just write them,

sets me free.

That’s why I don’t read poetry.

I’d rather watch it.

I mean, how can I know how you felt when you caught your lover cheating after losing your baby, without looking into your eyes.

The word “joy” means nothing, but seeing the look on a child’s face at Christmas as he opens his first gift, is more than the word.

I won’t claim I’m a poet but rather a writer.

I love it; so much that I used to write with spray cans, my plea’s to the universe, and the government, on county property only.

NO, I don’t know if I’m a poet, yet

But I do know that if I sit with my laptop, my pen, my self, long enough

a valve opens up and words seep out of me like prayers to a God on vacation.

I give credit to my muse for the inspiration to sit with my laptop until 4 in the morning, writing.

I can’t explain the process because I haven’t got it figured out,

All I know is that it is better than any drug because it’s redeeming.

I stopped writing for a while because I lost my nerve,

my confidence, my focus.

When I got it back I found that my muse was right there,

Beckoning me to come back.

I write to be of service to her, to give her a mortal voice,

to sing her song.