You Read My Poetry
You read my poetry.
Not the kind of poetry I spend hours on, tweaking every word, checking all of my spelling,
But that crap I wrote in middle school
Just as my mind began to darken
And my thoughts began to spiral.
I don’t think you know about that time.
About how I felt like my insides were melting
But I couldn’t let my outsides show it.
About how my life had been disintegrating
Like a dried up flower that’s too delicate to touch.
About how my whole world had been sinking into a quicksand of lethargy
From which it would take years to escape.
I don’t think you knew any of that
Because you read my poetry.
Out loud.
To someone else.
While I was there.
You read my poetry.
You liked it.
I think.
You read my inner thoughts that I can’t believe I’d turned in,
Even though I’d only written it because I was told I had to.
My thoughts about terrible things
Like death
And global warming
And the inevitable death of our planet
And about stupid, silly things
Like how “alligators ate my array of ants.”
But you didn’t pay attention to that part.
You read my poetry
That I wrote about you.
Well, to be fair, it was about your mother
And your grandmother
And my great grandmother
And losing all of them.
In my poems, I talk about you.
You cried.
I did, too.
But now, I never see you cry.
Have you forgotten how?
Sometimes, I think I have.
You read my poetry.
And that makes me want to laugh and cry and scream and punch something
And hug you.
Because you liked it.
I think.
I still write poetry.
Only now, it’s not going to end up in some seventh-grade anthology
Sent home with a stack of assignments at the end of the year
For you to throw away or keep or whatever it is you do with them.
Now, I write poetry that you’ll probably never see.
But if you did, would you read it?
Would you know it’s about you?
I’m sure you would.
Would you be embarrassed?
Probably.
Would you tell me you like it?
I’m not sure.
I hope you don’t read my poetry.
Not anymore.
I hope you read other poems and love them and think of me as you do
But I hope you don’t read mine.
Here’s why:
You read my poetry.
Not the light-hearted, fun, happy rhymes
But the dark, deep, scary stuff.
You read my poetry, and you liked it.
I think.