Oct 2013
I don't know why people read my poems.
I really don't.
And I am disinclined to believe the numbers that come up,
"600 people have read [insert poem name here] since 4 o'clock".
It seems absurd that people would devour something created by me.
But,
See,
It makes a bit more sense when I think of it the way I always end up thinking of it:
They're not reading me. They're reading you.
It's really terribly true, you know-
Never let an artist fall in love with you.
Everything they do will be you, for heaven knows how long.
(They don't even know.)
In fact, I've yet to find a piece of art of mine that isn't everyone I've ever loved, just a little.
They leave shockwaves in my life, and it comes out through my poetry and my art.
These people by the hundreds,
They're not here to appreciate me.
They're here to appreciate you, my love.
It's all about you, and so they are drawn to it.
Not because I am so horribly wonderful at writing, but because
I have stumbled upon a way to explain,
In small little parts called poems,
What you are to me.
It's not explainable, not fully, but people love the trying.
I'm trying to build something, see.
A good poem,
About a feeling that cannot be expressed in words,
Does not try to name that feeling- after all, there are no words for it.
No, a good poem names everything but.
It talks around the feeling, so precisely and with such excruciating detail that by the end,
There is a hole in the middle of the words, and, reading them, people stumble across it,
And fall into the feeling uninhibited.
Because it has not been said, it has not been limited.
A good poem leads the reader to an impossible word, and makes them feel it.
You are an impossible word. But you don't fit in a poem.
That's why I'm writing so many.
I'm building something.
Something like a poem, made of poems the way a poem is made of words.
I'm trying to build it, so that when they read these poems,
(Whoever "they" are)
They stumble across the hole in the middle, the space shaped just like you and what your soul looks like behind those blue eyes,
And they fall hard, just like I did,
And they understand what it means to have met you, even though they never have.
That's why I can believe that people read my poems: They aren't reading me.
I'm only the words. The placeholder that bends around the real point of all of it.
You?
You are the impossible word. The impossible feeling. The impossible person.
And these people
Their love
*Is yours.
I really don't.
And I am disinclined to believe the numbers that come up,
"600 people have read [insert poem name here] since 4 o'clock".
It seems absurd that people would devour something created by me.
But,
See,
It makes a bit more sense when I think of it the way I always end up thinking of it:
They're not reading me. They're reading you.
It's really terribly true, you know-
Never let an artist fall in love with you.
Everything they do will be you, for heaven knows how long.
(They don't even know.)
In fact, I've yet to find a piece of art of mine that isn't everyone I've ever loved, just a little.
They leave shockwaves in my life, and it comes out through my poetry and my art.
These people by the hundreds,
They're not here to appreciate me.
They're here to appreciate you, my love.
It's all about you, and so they are drawn to it.
Not because I am so horribly wonderful at writing, but because
I have stumbled upon a way to explain,
In small little parts called poems,
What you are to me.
It's not explainable, not fully, but people love the trying.
I'm trying to build something, see.
A good poem,
About a feeling that cannot be expressed in words,
Does not try to name that feeling- after all, there are no words for it.
No, a good poem names everything but.
It talks around the feeling, so precisely and with such excruciating detail that by the end,
There is a hole in the middle of the words, and, reading them, people stumble across it,
And fall into the feeling uninhibited.
Because it has not been said, it has not been limited.
A good poem leads the reader to an impossible word, and makes them feel it.
You are an impossible word. But you don't fit in a poem.
That's why I'm writing so many.
I'm building something.
Something like a poem, made of poems the way a poem is made of words.
I'm trying to build it, so that when they read these poems,
(Whoever "they" are)
They stumble across the hole in the middle, the space shaped just like you and what your soul looks like behind those blue eyes,
And they fall hard, just like I did,
And they understand what it means to have met you, even though they never have.
That's why I can believe that people read my poems: They aren't reading me.
I'm only the words. The placeholder that bends around the real point of all of it.
You?
You are the impossible word. The impossible feeling. The impossible person.
And these people
Their love
*Is yours.
