roachaphobia: simple, rhyming, frivolous: hatred wrapped in fear.

my very first poem was written at eight

or at least the first poem i clearly recall 

i remember because my glory was fate

my poem pinned up on my year-four class wall

trophied praise to receive from my teacher as bait

a motivation so strong i treasured triumph above all

but my next poem came after a very long wait.

 

savoury: a dark story, glittered with words like papardelle

and kaleidoscope. my second poem was co-written

in caesura and enjambment; a body of work

buried under layers of metaphor and allusion

alluding to my helix of fourteen-year-old gcse hormones

and the discovery of rhymeless poetry, telling stories

of wartorn palm trees and illegal borders- instead we,

close friends inside a maze of boxes only we could navigate,

told a senseless, sensefilled tale of broken friendships and murderous pasta.

 

wilfred owen: internal rhymes and rhythmic tides of extended plosives

i grew into veering phrases that winded and waned in phases

unexplained with grand undercurrents to undercut the wiley winds

blowing my sails to said sounds to ohs and ows and occaisonal ays;

ay, at sixteen I acknowledged the lean, growling ledge, so low, and so easily i swayed

into seas of sibilance and oceans of onomatopoeic experementation but

 

but it was off;

too distant, wrought dismal, by impersonality--

glittered, still frivolous, fricative at best

 

no, i only knew poetry when i began writing for myself

 

SELF: gendered

SELF: racialised

SELF: sexualised

SELF: nationed

SELF: who am i?

what is that bleating in my eardrums?

why can i not separate my shoulder blades?

where was that bloody confidence in my uterus last night?

when will my body stop dictating my mind????

 

answer:

da capo again and again in pitter patter fingers in the dark

on phone screens that crescendo into head pounding and

drums behind my ears until my vision is skewed and i'm

drumming selfworth into my selfstyle until

selfme is selfsatisfied and then i

have become 

whole

again    ;

 

which is to say,

i write poetry because words make melodies too sweet to resist but

i am a poet because i am trying to find some answers