SELF/POETRY

Finding My Words

Is this what it means to be a poet?

Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash

In that other time
I spoke in prose,
ordered phrases
falling line
after line,
on to the page

I thought of myself
not as a writer,
merely a cypher
documenting
the pain of others

Then the words
slowed to a trickle,
syllables wrapped me
in warm confusion
until finally, I emerged
heart in hand

Now, with stringy hair
and blackened eyes
I pace the room
in yesterdays clothes,
searching for meaning
in abbreviated form

Sleep is a
tortured affair
as I wander through
watery dreams,
words percolating

I wake to find
mysterious hieroglyphics
scrawled on the wall,
the work of some…