Speak

Every time I listen to a spoken word poem,
I want to write something that stands above the paper,
floats in the atmosphere, inhaling the breath that my audience is holding;
something that needs to an ear to cradle it.

But my words are silenced by the broken microphone in my throat,
and my shaking hand that can only write on a canvas that doesn’t have an easel.
People are always telling me that I’m too quiet.
They never say I need to speak in an octave that’s a few notes higher.
Just because I can’t sing,
doesn’t mean that whatever comes out of my mouth isn’t music.

I wonder if Van Gogh had butterflies in his stomach
the first time he let someone look at one his paintings.
What would have happened if
Shakespeare kept his plays hidden in his diary?
Why did Beethoven keep playing piano
long after he couldn’t hear?
I think sometimes the only thing I need is an encouraging tap on the shoulder
to remind me other people need to kindle the spark in them too.

Maybe then my voice will be a continuous flow of somersaults
entertaining millions of people at the spoken word Olympics.
Would I still get a perfect ten even though my syllables started bumping into one another,
and my stuttering heartbeat echoed through the microphone like skipping record?

I can’t ask you to lend me your ears.
All I can wish for is a room filled with eyes quivering to hold back tears
and voices that can only mutter,
“I felt that.”

Cracked Sky

I once saw a shooting star fall,
and when it did,
it cut the sky like a blade.

The stars bled from the slit
the way water drips from a leaky faucet;
tragic but impossible to looking away from.

I tried to catch them until I realized
that there will never be enough hands
to hold all the pain that falls from the sky.

Then I thought about how many
wounds have been inflicted
by skyscrapers and airplanes

Ever since then, I have been searching for a tourniquet
that would stop the rush of blood
and hide the scars of the shooting stars.

Rough Draft

Behind every blank face is a novel.
If you read along and turn the pages,
you can find a personality and a story.
We’re all stories.

When most people stare,
they look at hair and eyes.
I scan faces for stories,
wondering how they listen to rain or
if they make a wish after blowing out the candles.

I see people in paragraphs.
Some are detailed prose,
while others are short and sweet poetry.

Myself?
I am unwritten;
this novel inside me still doesn’t have a resolution.
I am a rough draft.

So please,
don’t read me yet.