I never knew how to
write poetry correctly.
It's not like it comes with an
instruction manual
that reads in italicized letters

"dig so deep into your head that if a brain aneurism were to spontaneously combust, you'd be the first to know about it"

No one told me that my emotions
would corkscrew like falling
meteorites every time I picked
up a pen.

No one told me that the thoughts
would sometimes dry up
and leave me searching like
a dog who buried a bone and
then developed a rare type
of amnesia.

No one told me that sometimes
it would be hard to get the words
onto the page without tears
falling like a liquid avalanche.

There was no instruction manual
or italicized letters. There was only me,
and a lot of lessons to learn.