Literature is….!

 Boring.

 

I slept through Kipling,

Napped on Dostoevsky,

You think I liked Dickens?

The man who made me listen to

The words of A Tale of Two Slumbers?

 

Kafka was okay

        but not on the day

              when the essay was due

                       and I just knew

                                what my teacher would say

                                         when I walked away

                                                 from turning it in

                                                          and to my chagrin

                                                                  the red marks on the page

                                                                           looked like a rampage

Of disappointment.

 

 

….I knew it sucked but it wasn’t that bad,

I might add

that I had

a Calc test on that day, too, comrade.

 

What I’m trying to get across

In a long winded way

Is that school doesn’t let you

Be creative when they say

“write this poem” or “read this book”

It’s an order, not a pastime, and it’s those rules that took

All the joy

away

from poetry.

 

I didn’t learn to love the lip of a page,

A pen pursing paper,

The friction that fiction forced me to feel

Until my teacher told me that words are

Not beasts but opportunities.

 

I was afraid of their teeth when I dug too deep

Into the passion they guard or the pain they keep.

But words don’t bite, they shine on

Strings of empathy that I cling to desperately

Because a life without literature is barren.

 

My art of choice has always painting.

Words were constraining!

Writing needs training!

And emotions are draining      

When you have to spell them out.

 

I’ve used every excuse to not write,

And I’ve put up a noble fight in spite

Of the fact that poetry ignites me.

It challenges me to unravel this

Tangled ball of brains,

Makes me sit and reflect on what I’d rather forget

And I swear I've got ink in my veins.

 

But poetry’s not easy,

I erase more than I save,

I crave

The words that stave

Off anxiety

But force sobriety

Because words make me feel,

Especially when I don’t want to.

 

I could say “poetry’s my life” or

“I’m SO different” or

“poems write me” but… honestly?

That’d be a lie.

And I’m not a liar.

 

I’m just a kid who likes words and the sounds they make,

And poetry is a gift that allows me to shake

My muddled brains awake.