I think what's so beautiful about being a poet
is reading your own work
and feeling yourself slip right back into that same spot of
what you were so eager to describe once upon a time.
When writing that perfect poem in a frenzy of
intensity, you get that annoyance, that irritation
eating away at your skin like a disease,
bubbling on your fingertips and itching on your palms
that maybe, you will never be able to properly capture
exactly what you're feeling,
that you may never be able to once again understand what you're
experiencing right now.
You laugh and wonder if you'll ever become an uptight parent
who completely forgot what it meant to love for the first time,
or forgot that sharp, aching feeling you felt when you finally
realized that the World isn't really at the tips of your fingers.
They say that sometimes, there's nothing more soothing than hearing
someone say "Me too"
validating that we are, in fact, entitled to feel as we are.
"If I can't understand it again one day, how will I ever
know I once ever felt at all?
Is this all real?
Have I gone mad?"

And I think it's important to remember these feelings,
these mythical things that have torn gaping wounds into
our souls and broke us open in ways we had never once thought possible.
What doesn't **** you makes you stronger versus "we are only
products of the experiences we have".
Sometimes we urge ourselves
that the pain isn't worth it, that we shouldn't allow ourselves
to break down and crumble and shatter and fall.
It isn't worth it to feel this way, it's not fair to who I am.
Protect and hide and cover your heart,
We are only out to protect what is rightfully ours;
ourselves, just us, the only things that we know are for absolute certain.

Why should we ever forget
and discard what reminds us that we're here?

As poets, we never want to forget that
we can feel;
that this feeling ever existed, and that it deserves to be
clearly heard, never forgotten.
Acknowledge how my breath tickles your cheek
as you listen emptily to me speak.
I want these words to be in every book, every library,
every Bible you ever open, every newspaper you ever pick up,
don't you dare forget that you are a l i v e,
left and right,
heart throbbing and brain whirling,
mouth watering and eyes blinking.
"These feelings must be translated into wisps of words
and rhymes and prose, whispered and yelled and cried and shouted.
My throat is raw and I am feeling it down my spine,
please don't try to shut me up or complete my sentence,
I want you to know that these words, used over millions
and millions of times, are beautiful in their way
because, like people, no matter how many times we decide to
use them over and over again, they will never lose beauty -
they will never fail to make us feel so alive."