I Hate Poetry

I hate poetry

No, really I do

Because I am a butterfly wrapped tightly

In a warm little cocoon

There isn’t much space

I’ll be outgrowing it soon

But it’s calm in here

Safe from the calamity

That panics me

like a lion at the zoo

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I’ve tried writing in different styles

I once wrote a haiku

I read it out loud

And once I was through

I asked “well, what do you think?”

You said “ehh that won’t do.”

That’s when I felt myself shrink

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And shrivel in my womb

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Descending down into the cave whence I came

Not knowing what to do

From grief to rage

From rage to safe

Running back to my cocoon

Except it’s cold in here now

and the snakes like it too

They feed off the black tumor that’s formed in my sacral

Sending electric pulses to the nerves up my spine

and down to my ankles

Until I am paralyzed with defeat

And I think that this poetry thing just isn’t for me

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I cross my arms in protest

Covering my chest where my beating heart

builds a nest and calls it home

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I hate poetry

No, really I do

Because poets aren’t honest

They hide their audience from the truth

They dress their wounds in metaphors and similes

What good does it do? What’s the point? What’s the use?

I would rather just spit it out and say it

I refuse to be confined to these rules

That make it so hard to convey it

Your rhythms and rhymes feel like shackles around my feet

But that’s just my excuse

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Because my feelings run so deep

They hang like a noose

I can’t condense them into stanzas

Or let my thoughts on the loose

or just focus on one side

because I have too much pride

If I were a painter I’d paint the same thing 7 times

Or as many as it would take

to show you all the angles

Because I am not fake

​

I won’t hide behind the pretty words that they wear like a mask

Because I’m left with the aftermath

of the scattered thoughts in my brain

The ones that beat me down into a bloody pulp

Until I am so numb that I can’t feel the pain

In fact

I won’t even try at all

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