A poem is a story that someone tells,

One who cannot say it aloud.

A poem is something you speak from your heart,

You tell it as a poem because that’s how you make it dear to you.

It's how you make it your own.

The heart is a mysterious thing, working in mysterious ways.

That's why I believe poems have rhetorical devices,

It’s the heart’s way of speaking.

Writing poems has taught me this

And now I see poems in a different light than ever before.

I no longer see boring, strange words from some author on a page.

Rather, I see the secrets the authors couldn’t bear to speak,

The tales of their lives,

Their dreams, 

Their hopes, 

Their stories.

It is through writing poems that I understand this.

I wrote a farewell poem to a dear friend after they graduated,

I wrote a heartfelt poem to my sister after one of her great accomplishments,

But my favorite is the elegy I wrote for my grandma,

About my grandpa from WWII.

These poems were my stories to them, things I couldn’t bear to say aloud.

And now I see poetry in a different light,

And it holds a special place in my heart.