Someone commented on my poem once,

“you don’t know how to write”,

then the comment below that one said

“your poems have changed my life”

Then some radio hosts tried to dull my light,

making fun of a piece from the baby’s perspective

No objective,

just because it had the effect of

Clicks, and bait, then yesterday’s news.

But that’s not why we write

It’s not junk to consume.

Not to taste and forget

It’s to feel and connect, it’s words they tattoo

which I still can’t dissect.

But I’m grateful to the writers

who get up on stage,

get told that they’re shit, or their accents  are strange

the ones who bleed onto every page

when their body can simply no longer contain

their joy or grief, their hope or their rage.

I’ve had publishers not take a second look

Then Meghan Markle said it’s her bedside book.

I never concidered myself a poet,

never tried to be someone else.

I just wanted to write something honest,

just something I’ve felt.

And I’ve written for Mother’s who have faced the unknown

whose hearts have shattered into cold bones -

poems for their children to leave behind

when everything felt lost

only words left to find.

They turn to the makers, the writers, creators,

The misunderstood, the tender, the forsaken.

For a bird that is trapped, for the hope of a light, for the feeling you get when your eyelids bite.

When the tears squeeze out

and remind you you’re alive.

When curiosity is the love language

we use to survive.

You know the pain to sit in a feeling

to connect the dots while you stare at the ceiling

Underline bits of life that others may miss,

know the sound of a heartbreak,

the scent of a kiss.

And when they leave comments in the shape of a fist

You water the roots so the words keep growing.

All of this just to say

I hope you keep going.

(I hope you read this like a rap)

Inspired by Lucas Jones and Harry Baker