Dear Young Poet
Dear young poet,
All I want to do is offer you solace
For my heart often bleeds as I savor your prose.
Spellbound I’m rendered the more I discover
So tragic, so wretched, why reach for more?
Perhaps it’s your courage, my attention commands
Or the pain transfixed by your eloquent pen.
Too bitter to swallow and putrid to bear
And yet, I am lured in again and again.
Captivated, baited, even grated by your throes
Deafening, your silence, though too, is the noise.
I must turn the page. No, wait, just one more!
Your words are a call too crucial to ignore.
All I want to do is hug a young poet
Tell you your words are ones I believe
That your foe, your friend, and he, sharing your bed
Have synchronous hearts, a symphony in red
While yours is offbeat, always moments ahead.
You quiver in a maze of misunderstood thought
Asking in vain what on earth you did wrong.
You flog without mercy your punishing core
And in walks Reactance with all of the throng.
Magicians in their own right bending perception
Dragging you down while stripping you of innocence.
That fine woven cloth of truth, deceit, and wickedness
Is but a storm-infused waterfall, needy and diffident.
All I want to do is hug a young poet
But would she believe me if I said heart in hand
A saboteur she’s not, nor too weak, nor too lax?
In her lies the power to whitewash the blues
With marigold, taffy, and blush all suffused.
Friends around, who care or care not
might offer you warmth or a snide remark.
Trust in your own power to assuáge the pain
In time you’ll heal and feel far less strain.
Meanwhile, just live. Love, hurt, then rise.
Your contemplative pen touching paper in stride.
One day you’ll discover to feel hard is a gift.
For each downward drop fuels a far greater lift.
All I want to do is hug a young poet.
Fate tuned your emotions to far greater reach
And so as you fall, the ache’s never meek.
True, it’s intense, it’s strong, and it’s young.
So too is your love, and your laugh, and your song.
Would you believe me if I tried to convey
That today’s just the present, to have faith in your ways?
Stand tall in your splendor, give your all unto you.
Body, intellect, and essence, feed them all that you do.
But will he believe me, he reading these words
Or the woman confounded, feeling disturbed?
Will any young poet heed to this view?
Dare I say not, for once I was you.
Photo by Alina
Thankful for the tough lessons that brought me to where I am today, I am uncertain I’d be overflowing with so much gratitude had my journey been a simple one. I wanted to convey that message to the brave poets I discovered in recent months, hoping to uplift and inspire them. Thank you, Streetwriters, for amplifying my voice.
“Dear Young Poet” was published on March 15 on Streetwriters.