coach, listen

i read for three hours,

wrote a poem,

did homework and called it a day.

you show up, all sirens and sermons,

like life is a stopwatch and i’m the fool losing the race.

but coach,

i don’t write with a gun to my head,

or your shadow on my shoulder.

poems aren’t pizza,

they don’t show up because somebody’s hungry.

i’ll write when the words crack me open.

i’ll write when the quiet hurts more than the noise.

and if that takes ten hours,

ten days,

ten lifetimes,

so be it.

the poem will come.

it always does.

but it’ll come on my time,

not yours.