Who said poetry had to be pretty?
Poetry is feeling, not rhythm or structure or sound
(It’s a release, an escape, a willingness to give someone else any taste of emotion)
But not all feelings are pretty.
(Some are deep and dark and heavy,
Misguided, misleading, misplaced –
Ugly, disgusting, disfigured creatures that claw their way through your body,
Words, mind
And tear through life leaving crumpled bits of paper hearts to lead us back to our flowery,
uplifting selves that tend to rip apart so easily)
So poetry can be lovely,
(Full of birdsong and nectar, floating happiness)
Or repulsively morbid,
(Bubbling with toxic anguish, furious scar tissue, and eclipsing nightmares of nothingness)
Or even somewhere in between –
(Wrong, wrong, wrong,
Boring statements that could change the world and hypnotizing opulence that will never reach any dream of significance)
Just like us.
Because poetry is feeling,
And feeling is human.