Non-Aligned

You say poetry is liberation, poetry is a movement

Yet you guard it's gates like it's your birthright, like poetry is your ancestral heritage you have to safeguard from things you don't consider poetry enough

You say poetry is for one and all

And yet you bark rules and impose terms like a dictator fearing his imaginary empire will come crashing down like a house of cards

You say poetry is art

And yet all you ever talk is tall tales of cheap, rented ideas, like an ageing ape aiming for the low hanging fruits

You and I are poets nevertheless

But peers, we never were, we never will be

You need background scores to make your words bearable

I trade in awkward silences and heavy gasps to clothe my words in

You throw around words complicated enough to break jaws

I deal in ideas non-binary and non-aligned, that crumble biased backbones of spineless existences

You use words like diamonds, a veil of borrowed sophistication to mask your inner shallow

I use words like crumpled notes and clinking coins, the only currency I've ever known

You write poetry for greatness

I write poetry because I'd have to cut myself open if I didn't

Your poetry smells of expensive aftershave and sells abstract dreams

My poetry reeks of cheap liquor and tells ugly truths

You and I are poets nevertheless

Except, you're the pimp and I'm the flesh