A Poetic Reaction to Judgement

Don't you look at my art and call it by
a name that doesn't fit it
I don't hold you accountable for your judgements
because you can't penetrate this wall I have built
with my words.

My art is solid
my words are truth
Call me what you will

because I will not hold you accountable
for what society has taught you to see
Open your eyes, observer
Open your heart to my message

My art is my soul
written on paper, digitally imprinted
in this new society where everything is supposed
to fit
into 140 characters or less

into vanity, into selfishness, into faithlessness
constant questioning constant begging for answers
You will not find your truth on a computer screen
you will not find yourself in some box that you call
"we"

that box is a chain holding you to ground that shakes
shatters and swallows you whole
anything that means something to you
may mean nothing to me.

I don't claim to be sane, I don't claim to make
masterpieces
I only claim to tell the truth
my truth.

And the truth is
my heart is full of this poetry
of these words and of this desire
to open somebody's eyes
to say "Hello!  You are who you are, and I am who I am."

Stop running stop hiding behind your makeup
behind your words behind your swagger
Who are you when you take away everything?
When I take away everything, I am poetry
Who are you when you have nothing but your heart?
When I have nothing my heart, I speak, I write

When you lie alone at night what do you feel?

I tell you what I feel
I hear my poetry in the sky
I hear my words in the stars as they sound above me
like symphonies, trumpets

I don't write smut
I don't write anything that you would call it
I write
my truth.

My faith.

My faith lingers in this art that we call poetry
my strength my identity can only be found
in writing this now
Pouring over every word I have written
like an archive, like a story of some other person.

Don't look at my art as anything but mine
don't hear these words in any other voice
let mine resound in your ears and tell you

I take my heart out of my chest
I put it on this paper to share with you
I write it on this screen, to share with the world
I have placed it here before you not
to earn your judgement
but to show you

this is my heart.
these are my words.

Ly Hansen