Answer to Rejection

You want some robot “poetry voice” to come out of me

Knowing about things like stanzas and haiku

How can she, like, not know haiku and call herself a poet?!

But I can only write using This voice

And that fake shit don’t fly here

Maybe it’s Real to you –

“shimmering lakes” and clichéd-a-million-ways-to-say autumn leaves –

and that’s ok

But Real to me is just…

being free enough to be me

To let out my truth

Imperfectly

This is my poetry.

This is my art.

This is my voice.

You can reject it for its lack of “poetry-ness”

Or say anything you wish, really

I’ll just float along with the smile I feel forming on the inside

Because, well…

I don’t write for you.

Tomorrow

Don’t know what to do right now

Just trying to get to tomorrow

My brain is fried

My soul, it hurts

Filled with such deep sorrow

And I really wish that I could write

About funny, happy things sometimes

I know this Heavy stuff gets old

These little torturous rhymes

But what can I say?

It is the world I am in

I don’t know how to set down this load

My shoulders ache

From the constant quake

Of stories I am told

I wish I were a comedienne

So I could lighten your load

Make a smile spread ‘cross your face

But I’ve lost all my funny bones

And here I sit, holding such weight

Trying to “Let it go”

But Knowing truth underneath

Cannot be Unknown

So here I sit another night

Another sadness

Another fight

And I’m just tryin’ to find

Tomorrow.