Don't Read Into It #1: Unpublished

I didn’t know I had to write for you

Post my secrets in the town hall

And stand naked in the city center

Preparing to be shamed

Do you get some sick thrill

Watching me cry?

Watching me bleed?

Watching me die? and

Suffer through these labor pains

To rebirth myself once more?

I thought I could be a poet

In secret

In the shadows

Without the acclamation

Without recognition

A poet

Just for its namesake

Because I know nothing else

I feel nothing else

And I've learned no other way

to draw the poison from my veins

But through piercing my wrists

With bared teeth

I didn’t know

There was no personal

In poetry

That people expect your heart

On your sleeve

And a piece of your soul

In exchange for accolades

I thought I could write for me