You're suffocating me.
All I'm trying to do,
All I'm trying to be is
Me.
Purely, unapologetically, authentically.
You hate that,
Because the more I'm me,
The less space you have to boast you
To show off the sparkling, glittering,
Mesmerizing material that makes up
You.
That makes up all of who you are
And you hate that.
And you hate that
That's all you are.

What's it take
These days

To write a poem

That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest

Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?

Is it perhaps...
     the "creativity"
               of      varied      spacing
  or...    could it be..... the lack
                              of capitalization
               the loathsome little letters
               screaming out
                         hey, look at us!
         ... or maybe it's
               the punctuation marks,
     littered, haphazardly
          through the text
                    (whether used correctly)
               or, theyre not?!
     despite worrds mispeled
          and a grammar might is broken
   can these gimmicks increase interest
        though miswritten or misspoken?

Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
     unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
   (or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
                  Praise for which we
                  Privately, desperately
                  Pray

Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism

Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes

Well, maybe not...
     those gems are often ignored
     cast-aside, unread, even abhorred

Why?

Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
   of "the right way"
   to write
   to speak
   to act
   to live
   to (fill in the blank)

No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!

And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way

Line
After line
Of synonyms
          over
               and
                    over
                         and
                              over
                                   again

-----

What's it take
These days

To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?

But more importantly:
What's it take

To make my poem go viral?

Help me.
Her cry could be
Heard over
Hills and
Hells, and the cries of
Heathens and
Harlots and ******.
His lips smacked
Hard against each other, already tasting
Her.
His tongue
Had already anticipated
Her neck, the neck that protects
Her voice, the voice that was stolen by cries for
Help, over and over and over again
He invaded
Her body, but crushed
Her spirit, and speared
Her soul.
He didn’t steal
Her virtue.
He stole
Her light.
He smothered it with
His body, covering every inch.
Here is the story of
Her and
Her daughter and
Her daughter’s daughter, and every woman that ever lived.

Here is
Her story.