Experience, tragedy , and Drama make the best poetry   add a few hyperboles and descriptive words expressing what happened   and shit    you're a poet      drawing in audiences reeling them in to take this trip with you up and down emotions     giving them whip lash      lashing out strings of words forming silky phrases     they didn't ask for this     probably considering suggesting therapy sessions but     they sure will snap for you     clapping will break the tension you see        I have a lot of issues     parents issues:     My dad is a military dad strict and raised me under a dictatorship     opinions and ideas were silenced.     His way was the right way.     Certainly not the only way     but it's that way or the highway.     He had the suitcase on the stairs ready.         hushed under yes sirs and no sirs and beginning to hate you sir.     Nothing, sir I'm fine     blood spilled though my ink pens writing over salt stained pages they went        Mom,     Mom who's been my mom for forever     nice, but passively aggressively pealed away my self esteem     and I do love her.     only to find out a few months ago that my mom isn't technically my mom.     not by birthing mom anyway.        It's some lady named Cindy.         and there was always     school issues:     mind functioning faster than most students      identified in Kindergarden     loved literature and writing reading      sucked in deep into the pages where I can escape the saddened reality I lived in      I talk to much.        years and years of comments tend to stick  until you grow to believe them     as you grow they become the residue similar to when you peel a sticker off something     we identify these as flaws        I have too many to count.         Annoying, loud, over achiever, try hard, partially black but act white     whatever the hell that means     I began writing poetry my freshman year of high school.     There was this guy I liked who was a musician     oh you know how the story goes     heart beating wanting to impress.     I undress him with my lyrical words     rhyming to match the timing     so the flow of my poem sounded like a song     all along.     it was really bad.     kind of a sad time     he didn't like me.     I was too dorky.     Kinda ugly.     I was a freshman.        But, then I began writing for me.     To express my inner demons giving them a new playground because I couldn't hold them within me any  longer      it was driving me down to a dark place I grew tired of being in.     and so I wrote and wrote my feelings and life      and decided to share     because now I know from  being within the poetry community.      I'm not alone and I have a voice     people will listen     so from one poet to another one who's underground.     come up     there aren't railroads down there anymore.     Just hollow tunnels echoing back