I Am a Poem Now

A true story

I was a story once. I wrote words like I was born with enough for each cell in my body and when my words spoke they wanted you to take a chair and sit with them. They even put the music on.

I was a story once. Something that hid within your heart and waited for the hand that would reach it and guide it into the world. Showing you there was at least one more person who felt the same.

I was a story once. Like a smart quip but longer. Where the punchline came just at the end and either made you gasp or sigh and you loved me nonetheless. I was short enough to be read again.

I was a story once. Pretending to be someone else’s. Now I know why I had nameless characters. Because there is danger in familiarity. And admitting the truth.

I was a story once. Something I would like to be again.

But I am a poem now. There is little that I can say in more than four words. I do not want a bag of words anymore. I want just a fistful. I force myself to put my hand back in and draw some more out sometimes.

I am a poem now. I don’t know when I became one. My stories think I do them injustice. Turning every line, every thought into a poem not them. They tug at my sleeve even now. Like today. When they think I shouldn’t say less.

I am a poem now. I don’t talk anymore. I whisper. I silently stay and stare at you till you show yourself to me. I don’t take a chair anymore. I stand. Moving at poetry like it is music to my heart if not my feet.

I am a poem now. There are no murder mysteries; there are no stories of friendship anymore. It is all love. In one form or another. Poems of things I hold close or want to.

I am a poem now. I admit I am more paragraph than verse. I fit awkwardly among the other poems, with their equal limbs and perfect features. They don’t know my past and the demons I have to fight, all the stories I didn’t write.

I am a poem now. Something I struggle to be.

I want to be both storyteller and poet. A creator. Maybe then I’ll be complete and not a piece, a piece of work.