A Poet

What it means to be a poet.

A Poet

A poet.

A person who pursues powerful words.

One who lives in the dark

under a shroud of negativity

with no regularity

for the darkness doesn’t end.

It silently strangles and suffocates.

Yet a poet willingly stays there.

For it’s not about those who stare,

or the soul they bare.

For a poet is selfless.

They shine a light

for those with no sight

and share the people’s blight

in an attempt to make things right.

They know problems exist outside their own

and they want them shown

because those with no voice

and no choice

don’t deserve that dark destination.

Like a child clutching a flashlight

a poet lights the dark and destroys the demons.

A poet hands those with nothing

something to grasp

so they know others feel their pain

and view them as more than society’s sickly stain.

A poet may live deep down in the Devil’s lair

but they still have a soul to bare

and a body for people to stare,

but that’s not what a poet is about.

They proudly perform for those who cannot;

for those left to rot

six feet deep

because nobody bothered to take the leap

to actually get to know them.

For those with a sick soul

where poetry is the pill

and the poet the doctor.

A sick soul is not broken.

It may be bruised and beaten but never broken.

Like a broken bone bent out of shape,

it hurts.

Like Ohio construction,

healing is slow.

Orange cones block off the swollen areas

but eventually they’ll be lifted away

to reveal something beautiful.

A poet.

A person who pursues powerful words.

One who understands those that dwell in the dark,

don’t dwell their alone.