This Day

I come here today because I have a friend who couldn’t
I come here to say the words she wanted to say but
went elsewhere instead.
I come here not to say the complete words because I
am not her and cannot do what she can and I will admit to that.
But I can say my words. I can say the words that cover over
me and sprinkle down their sharing onto her --
because! Because that’s what her words had done to me
they showered onto both of us enough that I don’t have to be
up here right now and I didn’t have to step upon this stage
to say these words.

I am a poet
and I may not be wearing all black
but I can yell and scream I am a poet
with pride just as she could scream her words and I sit
back and nod in agreement as if I were screaming alongside.
I am a poet and I wear black
and I sing songs in the shower
and blast my music that people have never heard of when
I’m in my car and lost
and I can sit back and scream in my mind
while I’m lost in my mind
and wander in my mind
to try and make sense in my mind.

Oh, I do wish that a part of me will
stand up here and tell you everything in my soul
but then no one out there would ever understand
and if you can understand then you should join
me up here as well and stand up for yourself
and me
and my friend
and your friends
just you.

This day is the day I stand before you
in honor of a friend who’s up somewhere
no one probably has really even heard of
and because if you’re someone sitting in the
audience in a short-sleeved shirt
you know it’s cold down there!
And maybe it’s just me and I was freezing
but I know by the time I got up on stage
I wouldn’t be cold anymore
because I’m so damn nervous that it
isn’t even funny.

And on this day I say my words in
twisted secrets that none of you
could make sense of because they’re
my words in which I don’t even
want you to make sense of.

And on this day I can tell you a story about a boy
who was killed for what he believed in. And I could
tell you this story because I heard it from a friend
and because I find it important but you could never
understand why because my words are so complex
that you could never interpret.

My words have meaning
my words have thought
my words have things
feelings
emotions
mood
every single thing you want to decipher and
can’t are what my words have
and even if you scream out I am a poet and I wear black
and try to hide behind those common words and angst
that you create from thin air I will be sitting in the audience
nodding and nodding
agreeing
understanding
and yet not.

Never getting your words because you have your own secret
ways of digging your true meaning away into them
and disguising them as something completely different
because you have a license and you can use your power
to your advantage
and I encourage you!

This day you learned something new
this day you learned a bit about me
and others.

But you don’t even know what you just learned.