What I’m Trying To Say Back in the hood, Just kidding, we were just a bunch of white, middle-class kids living in freedom and joy. That may not be accurate, accurate but we did have freedom and we did have joy. Not necessarily all the time. Kick the can, backyard football, and home before sunset to watch Batman. Not many poets from my hood, We had it too easy. Any wanna-be poets, Suffer from imposter syndrome. Still, the tattered blankets that protected us, woven memories of comfort, eventually ripped off like a scab-and-all band aid. Just kidding, more like we crawled out of bed because we were bored and needed to pursue more, in chase of proof we mattered. And the wanna be poets whined, “We need more angst. Somebody scratch our BMWs or something.” But our turn really did come when we had to face the raging rapids of reality. And some of us learned to steer, while others got lost to schizophrenia, or opiates, or plain bad luck. All of us that survived did one thing in common. We each took a piece of our tattered blankets, which made all the difference, to thrive on the shores we washed upon. What I’m trying to say is, Poetry, is mostly for the poet.