I Want To Be a Poet But I've Never Been in Love

In Paris, there is an exclusive club of artists called

The Lost Generation.

Their muses sit on champagne glasses under starlit

parchment.

They sing with clamshells and moonbeams while

poets carve rounded sighs.

Their speeches dent the breastplate atop my chest.

Because they say, what is art if not the vocal cords

of Eros?

The god of passion whisks followers everyday

and sculpts them into poets.

But Eros did not finish sculpting me,

And I wonder whether my pen still deserves this hand.

I tear my hair out at the sight of being forgotten

by an omnipotent god.

But the poets roll away from me in waves under heaving

stardust and into spoken paintings.

If you want to be a poet, The Lost Generation says to

me as my ears open wide,

your passion should look like leaves in a tornado,

sparks before a fire, or waves

baked in a storm.

Inky wine spills between the man

with a half smile and

the woman

with a microphone tongue.

But where do I burn if my heart has been leaking

fuel for eternity?

I won’t forget their curved lips nor the gin

that was spilled on my Parisian shoes.

I won’t forget the steaming words that

strike me

like a match that scratches a matchbox.

(To be a poet, the world has to touch you—

Not the other way around.)

_____

Check out more of my poetry!