there are days when my poems feel less like bruises
and more like crop circles waiting to spread their soft bones across
the earth of my page- these stories need to be told .
my voice used to be just a side effect of having a body ,
until it found paper and learned how to scream ,
the kind of scream that evaporates in all the noise .
i’d rather write about people who got lost in the cracks of my sidewalk -
so i can write about them clawing their way out -
than write about people who were born with every limb already above ground .
because sometimes every word is an act of therapy ,
and there’s no better listener than the reader who finds relief
in every oil spill of ink . because sad poetry is the truth ,
and i’m tired of biting my lip .
because the people i write for have been going through hell
and sometimes , if i spellcheck my words carefully enough ,
a line or two will flame brighter in that person’s heart
than the flames they’re so used to being burned alive in .
when i was a kid , i used to try mending the broken wings
of all the moths and butterflies that crossed my yard ,
until some of them gave up on flying with stitches ,
and i learned that sometimes people quit on life like that too .
so now i write all these poems to teach people
to start giving to themselves
instead of giving up or giving in .