I have heard people wax poetic, 

Pouring out their pain and blood, 

Speaking to themselves, to the world, to me 

 

My pain settles within me, 

But I see others pushing through this struggle 

Screaming for control, for feeling 

For love, and hope and loss 

I have read these poets calling out, 

And I feel as though they are speaking through me 

 

I have learned how to bleed beautiful,  

How to take something toxic, 

To take my anger, my fear, my loss, 

And turn into a battle a cry. 

 

I am not only scribbling out these words for myself, 

But for all those who stood where I once was 

As an extended hand to them, inviting them to exist somewhere 

That is outside their own heads 

 

I speak this poems and prose as homage to all those before, 

Those who taught me how to connect feeling to numbness, 

To connect my own world with that around, 

To the poets that taught me to breathe, cry and carry on.