robert frost says that poetry starts
with a lump in your throat.

so, i guess that my ballet class
last night, when i couldn't turn
like the other girls could
and i couldn't keep up
with the fast tempo of the song,
was poetry.

and by that definition,
the feeling that i had in class one day
when the kid that i used to like
just talked down to me
the entire time and made me
run out of class like a bat out of hell
and almost start crying on the bus,
was poetry as well.

but the truth is that i don't want my pain
to be poetic and everyone else
seems to think that every poem has to be sad
just so that people will like it.
and they exaggerate this sadness
to the point where it isn't sadness anymore,
it's just fake.

i want my poetry to come from the heart
and maybe come from the truth.
i want it to come from the lumps
that you get in your throat
when you are indescribably happy.