Let Poetry Be

Poetry isn't art

and anyone who says so

and anyone who feels so

and everyone who believes so

are but juvenile and innocent

or are too comfortable in the lie of it.

Poetry is diagnosis

of the ribs shattered by conditional affection

sold to you as parenting

of the lungs scorched charcoal black

in the need to please people, like you were entertainment

of the habitual insomnia you've convinced yourself to be a lifestyle disorder

but is really slow suicide

your being withered and wallowed in your deepest insecurities and hollowed out moralities

of the repeated breathlessness from worrying too much that you aren't living life the way it should be

because the manual kept changing and you never stopped to ask why, when, how

If your life hasn't left you damaged enough

that you've questioned if your conception was an erotic misconception

If you haven't contemplated ways to never wake up at least, if not acted on it

If being content and being happy aren't as abstract to you as communism is to self-seduced sellouts

If life hasn't challenged you to a gruelling duel to keep life alive every good morning

I'm happy for you

You've aced living

and as much as it hurts to admit

Your existence is a blister on my survival

So let poetry be

Let poetry be for the ones so broken

the idea of being put together scares the living hell out of them

Let poetry be for the ones so bruised

that healing hurts more than hurting

and hope is a drug their scars have grown resistant to

Let poetry be for the ones who need it

like surviving cancer needs chemotherapy

like amputated legs need wheelchair

Don't take away life support from the dying just because you can

You can have the world of words; let poetry be theirs.