I want a poem

I wanna poem to tell me

it’ll be okay.

I want a poem to say

all the stray words

stuck in my throat.

I want to toke on it, roll

the bits into thin paper, light

the end, and inhale long.

Yeah, I want a strong antidote

of meter and rhyme, telling me

this time hopelessness is just

a long word for lost faith.

So gimme a poem.

Show me how the grey expanse

gives way to cerulean.

Give me words I can chew,

metaphors I can swallow,

images I can drink.

Cover me with a blanket

crocheted with rhyme.

I need the measure of poetry,

to rid me of this stilted, prose life.

I’m holding a blade to my neck,

and that’s not a metaphor.

So please, gimme a poem.


©Ami Mattison