I.
Why was I asking them to do such hard things?
Rummage for bars and beats in backpack pockets.
Why fling open shutters on their squinting truths,
drag them into losing syntax and spelling wars,
reenlist them in battles they conceded long before,
unsure how to march their truths into straight lines?
Why pour emotions onto pages, onto stages, spin lost
words into poems they’ll just spit into microphones?
II.
We had no Midas nor Rumplestiltskin to make gold,
yet some days it spilled over us, cracked egg-yolk gold,
liquid light in questions like: “What if I want to change
my mind?” You can. “What if I want to write another
mother-love letter?” You can. “What if I don’t know
how to spell my dog’s name or the song that my
stepdad sang? Then I’ll help you find what you need.
Ask anything. We’ll figure it out & the best part is
you can spell “bully” with any letters you want because
you control who holds power in your word world when
that five-color clicky pen is in one hand & a journal’s
in the other. Believe the galaxy’s gonna pull up. No cap.
III.
Miss Dana, did ya know that when the Pokemon Staryu
is exposed to Water Stone, it evolves into Starmie?”
Nope, I never knew.
