A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't

I know the toothless women
Who crumple on the streets
The rain bleeds through their cardboard,
The cold drips through their feet

I know the dying children
With anaesthetic arms
The angels crowd around them
With time that burns their palms

I've hugged the brainwashed gangsters
With money drenched in blood
I've heard their broken weeping
While digging up the mud

I've seen the starving faces
Of the tired girls at home
The broken, hectic psyches
That eat them to the bone

I know the burning poets
With a desperate thirst for life
The need for finding soulmates
That pierces like a knife

There's weary public servants
Who risk their lives for good
And prove compassion every day
Yet stay misunderstood

Human love is buried
Beneath the plastic weight
Of angry allegations
And a world that feeds off hate

These people may be messy,
But they're beautiful and real
With hidden dreams and secrets
And ability to feel

We have a place to run to
With lights of peach and gold
Where all the weight is lifted
And all our tales are told

We live in total freedom
So safe beneath the moon
And though it seems ambitious
Our dreams will save us soon

I wish I could tell you
How cruel this world can be
Prepare you for a lifetime of expired dreams

Discover everything, especially if they say you shouldn't, because new things are mostly disapproved at first.

But just don't do anything that indeed is dumb and results in death.
That's just plain stupid.