New Age Amazon

This is your poem.
This is the poem you scribbled down in a notebook
but never shared for fear of being met with laughter.
This is the poem you considered when you saw him, her, it
but could not remember after that fleeting moment
and didn’t fight to get back.
This is the poem you wrote when no one was paying attention,
the poem you were writing when someone asked what was on your mind
and you let the poem go and said “Nothing.”
This is your poem
flowing from someone else’s pen
or pouring from someone else’s mouth.
This is your poem
and I am getting it all wrong.
You sit there and realize I’ve mangled the facts
I’ve gotten the legends confused.
And you are thinking that you could make it
smoother, uglier, sexier, angrier, better.
You’re right.
This is your poem
that you could never call a poem
because no one gave you permission to be a poet.

Take the name “poet”
(it is already yours)
and take back your poem
(I’ve got enough of my own).