That is what poets do

They romanticize pain
They idealize the torment

There is solace in darkness
Which they craft to enlighten;

Lure with words
The forlorn is adorned
Guilt is charming
Mistakes rewarding

That part that is revolting
The best line in their poems.

That is what poets do

They embellish heartbreak
To cement the heartache

But as soon as they leave their paper
and beautiful words captivated readers

Life can no longer render
The adequate metaphor
Agony is agony;

There is no substitute for it.

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
    Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

12 drafts later
And this poem is still ******* garbage
I tried to say something profound
But I had to start by Googling the definition
Plan B
Say something honest
So I wrote a verse about young love
But I have the soul of an old man
And I’ve never had a girlfriend
Dead ends
I want to write
I really do
But I’m lost for words
And the more I try to write about myself
About who I am
About what I’ve felt
About what I feel
Socrates
The only thing that I know for sure
Is that I know nothing at all
I heard someone say that once
Not sure what it meant
But surely it must fall under
“Having intellectual depth or insight”
Profound [Def. 1]. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Dictionary
**** it
I’m not a poet.

When the poetry flows through you,
it waits for no perfect moment,
there is no convenience mustered
to await your finding
paper and a pen.

When the words come,
you just know,
you feel the syllables rising from
the tips of your toes,
exploding out of your fingers,
propelling you into an
unsuspected state of
delirium as your mouth
silently forms the shapes
you spit onto your notebook,
brave hands twisting and
turning purple letters
round themselves,
brain melting and oozing
out into similes and metaphors,
pictures popping from
stories told and
secrets disclosed until
in one final swoop
the moment passes,
your work is done and
the pride and fear and
vulnerability and anxiety
you just birthed
stares back at you,
its ambiguous smirk
leaving you breathless.