What should a poet do once she’s out of metaphors?

I've certainly lost my edge

What should a poet do once she’s out of metaphors?

Should she turn in her pen and pad, and say,

“It’s time for me to retire into reality”?

 

I’m not sure what I can do, I gave up my muse.

I have no words to write anymore,

No pretty pictures to describe.

 

I’m out of dreams and fantasy,

Of what else have I ever written?

I’m not sure even this counts.

 

My clever end phrases have been all used,

I’m tempted to rip my other pieces apart,

Scramble them together in order to recycle and reuse.

 

But it doesn’t work that way, sadly.

I couldn’t build something new, because

What is a scramble of words, when I still have the dictionary?

 

I’m beginning to believe I sold my poetry to the devil,

In return for math skills and science logic, but I find now,

If that’s the case I have committed the folly of youth and arrogance.

 

I miss drinking words from the bitter winter cold.

I miss finding meaning in the scavenger hunt that is life,

But oh, how I miss every kiss being a stanza.

 

Yes, that’s what I truly miss.

Feeling a love so deep my heart spoke for me

If I traded anything, it was my heart for my brain.

 

No, my heart is merely heart-damaged, and I suppose

Most would rather such an affliction over being brain damaged.

But now, oh, how I miss hearing words in every beat.

 

Meaningless things used to mean more to me than equations.

And you, the beautiful boy of my youth, used to mean more to me than air.

I cannot say that you don’t mean the same to me now.

 

Why else, darling, would I write 2 poems in 3 days,

After being on hiatus for 2 years?

Why else, my love, would I be listening to our song on repeat?

 

All 100 kisses had become stanzas of their own back then.

But my heart’s memory has been damaged, so please remind her.

Help her write them again.

 

 

Author's Note

I thought it was a fun write.