What Does It Take To Be A Poet? (Slam :) first one)

What does it take to be a poet? To spell out pain like no one knows it, make listeners shake from hearing your broken sores open. Dashed with salt to burn and show it melt the only love in your life.

What does it take to be a poet? To recite the song of night like it was always your lullaby, make listeners dream from hearing your melody ring out from the silence in shadows at midnight.

I wish I could charm like a poet does, feed your soul like a poet does, show you the world like a poet does...

But I can't.

I'm nothing but the dot above an eye on the page, blind with rage and love, unafraid to walk in lightning but paralyzed when asked to give my name. And God, I'm so pathetic, with a heart that bleeds and pleads for someone else to think I'm human when in reality you have to care to be one of them.

What does it take to be a poet? I'll never understand because I can't scream my words like they can, attack paper like they can, change a life like they can.

All I do is whisper while my surroundings shout, blocking me out. And all I manage to do on paper is messy scrawls that taper off in corners and scratched out phrases noted with stars. As for changing a life, I don't see how someone who tried to end theirs is up for the task. Someone who's addicted to slashing and crashing while blood falls. Added, fuel to fire, and desire, desire, desire.

I'll never understand my heart like a poet can. Like a poet does. A heart that beats to stop, that jumps to fall, that breaks to stitch itself together piece by piece. A heart that never speaks but always tells, that never gives but always enchants, that never seeks but always finds romance. A heart that can't contain all the blood that soars through these veins. Trapped, by the pain of sixteen years with no name, but endless shame.

What does it take to be a poet? Someone who isn't scared to know it; someone who can't leave their bare soul to decay on Earth while their mind runs to uncharted stars. A few rhymes, a message, a flow to unify that doesn't even seem to try. And, by the end, I start to cry because I wish I could fly like the blood in my veins. I wish my heart could beat the same as all those who have felt the same disdain with much more fame.

What does it take to be a poet? Alive inside, alive outside. Alive sleep, alive wake. Alive love, alive hate. Alive heart, alive brain. Alive spirit, alive remains an immortal phrase on a slowly dying page, written by a soon forgotten dreamer in a waking age.

Spoken, by someone who will NEVER again live afraid.