Poetry is cheating.
I learned this
the night a single line
held my whole chest together
like a safety pin through an old suit.
Poetry is cheating,
but not because it is cheap,
not because it is fraud.
If anything, it is the only time
I tell the truth
loud enough for my own heartbeat to hear it.
Poetry is beautiful,
powerful,
seductive,
walking into the room in a thrift store suit
and making everyone feel
like they are wearing something holy.
Poetry is cheating because it lets us tell a story
without naming names,
without listing dates,
without filing the police report.
We get to say
“you”
and mean
all of them.
We get to say
“heartbreak”
and mean
the first time,
the last time,
the time that has not happened yet
but already trembles in our bones.
Poetry is cheating because we can break the grammar
like a bone that healed wrong
and still call it dancing.
We can forget about precision,
trade it in for the way a metaphor
wraps both arms around your shaking
and will not let go.
Irony is the lockpick.
The vagueness is the crowbar.
The line breaks are the fingerprints
we pretend we did not leave.
“Cheating” is a dirty word,
I chose it on purpose,
like choosing the knife
that cuts the bread
and the rope.
But it is right.
Poetry is cheating.
Every time I let it,
it steals a little pain from the room,
a little shame from the body,
a little silence from the throat.
It is cheating,
because for a few lines
i can lie sideways on the page,
call it art,
and feel less alone.
And I love it
like the last rule
I will ever break.