if not one to write

i write poetry on lined paper

in class & only half pay attention, rounded letters

barely containing all i want to say. i use green marker

& stare dreamily into the yellowed margins,

romanticizing, as poets do, the weight of my handwritten words.

i write poetry in a black notebook

sometimes, eking out the line breaks with a nearly dead

V7 blue roller ball pen. it comes slower then, & in starts,

and i can only assume the poems want me to think

in between inspirational bursts.

i write poetry on the notes app on my phone

about the moments i see that don't need

paper or pen, only a line sprung from poetic depths

& recorded in that almost formal sans serif font.

i write poetry

in the create section of YWP, and lose it, often,

when the words spill & tumble out of me & i forget

in my haste to copy it down

somewhere else. probably there are dozens of poems

lost to the abyss, but what is a poet

if not their forgotten lines? their unvoiced stanzas?

what is a poet if not one to write?