Hey,

 

Remember that time you had your heart broken by that girl you first loved?

                                                            Not an elementary love, but the real stuff

Or when you felt lost because your father was out of your life?

                                                            He was never there.

Or when that white guy called you a nigger in Cleveland?

                                                            Misguided racism, yet it still tasted sour

Or when you set foot on campus for the first time, scared you were going to be alone again?

                                                            You hate feeling alone.

Or when you were so depressed, trapped between life and death, you debated which way to go?

 

Each time, you plunged your pen into your heart

                                                            Soaked it with nature’s ink

                                    Wrote away the sadness

Yet, it wasn’t sadness

                        You were sad, yes

But it felt as if a drain was perpetually sucking you into this dark chasm

And you kept trying to climb out of it

                                    Because you didn’t want to see what was on the other side

                                                            You couldn’t let it get that far

 

Each time, words vomited onto the page

You didn’t care how they looked, how they sounded if they were even spelled right

The release was enough.

            And fortunately, the words formed a poem

                        And you felt a bit of happiness because you made something grow out of nothingness

 

At that moment, you felt life 

                                    All the strings tightened

                                                Holding you up

 

A life full of that sadness wouldn’t have been a life

It always ate at you

                        Consuming all the vital parts you needed to live

No one around you knew of the demons re-shifting the pieces inside you

                                    Cutting pieces of their demon flesh off 

                                                Mixing it up with yours

Until you forgot,

            You forgot how to be you

                                    Not sure how to put the pieces back together

                                                            Or which ones were even yours originally

But there was poetry helping you along

                                    Helping you re-configure your lost soul

 

What hasn’t poetry taught you?