Would I
still be
a poet
if none
of my
works
are read?

i used to hate fullstops

i hated the way they ended
stories which i never wanted
to see ending

i hated the way they sit
on the side of a page
thinking that they had the authority
to stop. and restart

i hated the way they didn't signify
a beginning, only an end
and the possibility of things continuing
were never certain

but what was certain,
was it's end

poetry‘s not meant to be certain
it's not meant to close up a story with a single line
or a single rhyme
must less a single dot

but then your life starts spinning
and suddenly you're looking at this tiny dot
and just wishing it could appear in your life
so that your story can finally end.

ever felt so many emotions
you went numb

ever heard silence so loud
it was deafening

ever saw light so bright
all you saw was darkness

because your life is a paradox

you gave it too much meaning now
*it means nothing at all

i used to think poetry was alliteration,
assonance, rhyme and rhythm
literary devices like onomatopoeia

but then i found the number of people
who wrote poetry about love
hurt, pain, brokenness
numbness

then i realised
poetry was simply being touched by you
being cut up and forced
to live with bleeding wrists and
a bleeding heart

the blood left on the sheets
that's what poems are made of