You will never see me perform my poetry

On America’s Got Talent.

Ellen DeGeneres won’t

Read this poem and invite me to

Los Angeles, California to be

“Filmed in front of a live studio audience.”

No, these aren’t Hollywood words.

They haven’t been botoxed or airbrushed.

My stanzas have not had the meaning

Lipo-sucked out of them

For mainstream media consumption.

No, these words are not beautiful.

They are raw and red and pockmarked

With the thoughts I’ve collected

As I’ve lived my own

Not-so-glamorous life.

You won’t see these words on the cover

Of Vogue or Seventeen.

Because these words, these rhymes

Are too real for TV

Uncensored, uncut, unfiltered

Exposed like an episode of TMZ.

So if you do see these poems,

They will be hidden behind

The black bar of a censor,

Not Valencia or X-Pro.

Someone let George Carlin know

There'll be way more than seven filthy words

Once I get on TV.