Poetry for me, is a way to express my emotions, even without using big words like melancholy, or ecstatic. I prefer a simple, laid back approach to my situations, making it a more mindful, and understanding experience. I do use imagery, and symbols, but in a way a reader can understand, such as my current poems “Help me” and “Grey”. Help me is about my struggles with gender identity and sexuality, using the prison walls as a box i had put myself in, not letting myself express who I really am. In Grey, the eyes, the tears, and the clouds dancing is me letting go of my past mistakes, and indulging into unhealthy coping mechanisms. “The clouds swirling into some kind of scary dance” Is when I decided to try my first cigarette, the smoke swirling into the air like it’s dancing. The eyes are grey, mimicking a rain cloud, my eyes going from dark brown to dark grey. The tears are self explanatory, because in the poem I state “Mimicking rain”. I had written stories, and attempted poetry all my life, and writing is a simple way I express myself. Even if it’s a suicide note, to a story, It helps me feel better in the end. Just because I don’t wish to use fancy words in my poems does not mean I don’t know how to fit them in. I’ve studied and loved poetry all my life, and listened to songs that were originally poems. My poems have parts in which they rhyme, and don’t rhyme. It’s a way I help show my emotion, the non rhyming parts showing my aggression towards something. Poetry can have two different types of writing styles in it, and doesn’t just have to be rhyming, or non rhyming. As long as it has a rhythm, and conveys the ideas of what you’re trying to say, It’s fine. -Ashton