I burned the notebooks and the fancy pens
and took down all the cyber-posts,
resigned from all the social groups,
and canceled my subscriptions
to digital daily doses
and three literary magazines,
--and filled the feedback fields
with rants against their efficacy.
I did a small self-inventory
and found the places in the corners of my brain
where poetry was hiding,
pulled it from its niches,
gave it over to the fire.
The poems did not scream,
but sighed
as they became gray ghosts of memories.
But some sat quiet, resolute,
inside the red skin of my heart
and though it hurt, I had no choice--
I left the wreck-rod in the flames,
then pressed it to my flesh
til each tattoo was cauterized.
And the silence that arose
to fill the space the words had left
began to beat against the rhythm
of
my smoking, scarring-over heart,
and declared itself
poetic.
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