is that the people who
don’t know where
their lives are going
are the only ones worth
being around and that
i should take my poetry
the same way i take my
coffee: strong and cheap
and wherever i can,
however it comes.
what i learned this semester
is that if you don’t get lost
it doesn’t count as an
adventure and if she
doesn’t gasp over the
skyline she isn’t worth
your bus money.
what i learned this semester
is how to find the best stories
where no one else looks;
in the people who sleep
under street lamps and
push their lives around
in shopping carts
and that once their words
hit, everything around you
turns to either promise
or poison.
what i learned this semester,
more than any formula or
literary device,
is that there’s a life here
waiting for me. i will remember
what reality feels like.