I’ve seen too many empty words
On papers covered with text
Like rows of parallel lines and
I’m painfully waiting for them to converge;
Feeling like a hopeless dreamer in a reality
Where intelligence is measured by the
Amount of white space you can cover
With a brush, but no paint.

And I wonder how you can speak with all your might
And still not be heard,
Am I simply not choosing the right words?

Maybe this rhyme wasn’t timed
Just right
For your head to ignite
With all the fury that spins inside of me
Like tornados of dirt in an open space
Where there is so much potential
But no one is there to observe,

How I can sometimes form images
Out of reckless stanzas of
Sounds that bounce just right
In the pits of my mind.

But these metaphors and similes
Don’t seem to put smiles on the faces
Of academics sitting up high,
On chairs of published journals
And research that stomps on your behind,
Until you realise you can never measure up
To their size.

But, I still twirl around in circles sometimes,
Collecting debris of those
Who have been misheard and
Misinterpreted as
Deadly villains in stereotypical stories,
Where their side of the story
Is simplified into scenes of disturbance.

I dance around manipulation
Ushering words I’ve gathered along the way
Until it amounts to a mangled creation
One that would make Frankenstein
Smile in admiration;
Until the story is turned upside down
And then all the way around.

I’ve seen too many bland sentences
In essays that we’re told to embrace,
When these chunks of information cannot hold themselves up
Without a thick spine of paragraphed meaning
And meticulously referenced supporting points-
Of relevance.
And you always sit there wondering
What the hell counts as relevant?
When there are thousands of combinations
Making up thousands of words that have yet
To grace our impatience.

I am still waiting,
Knees bouncing and hands drumming
Trying to piece together symphonies
In silent lectures about everything

And sometimes I think it might amount to nothing;
If I can’t make it interesting,
Interesting enough for me to want to weave it into
My natural disaster of a technique,
And call it a piece of myself;
A work of poetry.