Death by Poetry

They tell you to write a poem.
It should be easy, right?
Plug in rhyming words to a formula:
talk about death
or love
or make a strange connection between the flight of a bullet and fishing with your dad.

Poetry.
Just give the words a rhythm.
Just pick an extended metaphor
and then really beat it down
with as many
words
and
line breaks
as possible.

They tell you to write a poem
about that time a guy killed himself in front of you.
That’ll make for an interesting read, right?
So full of emotion! Surely it will translate beautifully into
3 cold stanzas.
Stark words.
Black and white.

Or maybe a haiku
if you want something….
easier.

We laugh.
We who write poetry.
We who feel words.
We, who have slant rhymes and extended metaphors living inside of us.
We laugh.

Because one does not simply just write poetry.
There is no formula to painting an image of death,
or life, or sadness, or depression, or love, or success,
or trauma, or nature
in words.
Because poetic metaphors and analogies are inspired,
not chosen. Not fabricated.
Because haikus are fucking complicated and
because nothing is black and white.
Because nothing about breaking and sharing bits of your soul

is easy.