i realized today
that i have been reading poems
in front of people
for more than a decade now
with varying degrees of regularity
and
i've been writing poems more than half my life
with varying degrees of regularity
but life seems to make the most sense when i do it
a lot of them are gone now
i have no idea how to find them
some of them i have in old notebooks
stacked in a corner in my bedroom
most of them are terrible

i wonder sometimes if these will be terrible someday
if its all just a mechanism
to get out what needs saying
in a safe
place
or maybe its all narcissism
and i just like
spewing feelings on a page
to make myself feel like i'm creating something
that i'm contributing
out into the ether
for others to find

do i write poems because they need writing
or do i write poems because i need to explain myself
                          or is it all like that frank ocean song

we could kick it in the living room
looking through my whole vinyl collection
and you could teach me how to slow dance or something
and ima give you chills harmonizing to
otis, isley, marvin

and every time somebody asked me
if i sing songs to get at women
i say yeah

he came out a year or two ago
it made a bunch of hip hop fans
act like assholes on the internet
i never understand people
or why they care so much what other people do
funny
the song still works if
you change women to fellas


i would be lying to you
if i said
"i don't write poems about women"
i don't always know if its to get at them though
like frankie was saying

and sometimes i just write poems.
i don't know if they matter
and i'm not getting at anybody
i'm just picking at the scab that being alive has left me

and sometimes, i write poems to get at women
i say yeah