Today, I will melt
In the 100 and 3 degree
weather.

Today I will break down
This puzzle, and put it
all together.

Today I fight for what my name is…
Today I am the realest, and I feel like this.
Like I’m the truest poet to ever live.
Because I live this shit.
And survive it…

Some can live…
Some get by…
Some try too hard to fly
but fill their head with drugs
and mis-step,
like stepping and slipping
on the train tracks,
you realize that this is it.

One slip, you’re finished.
There is only one life I know of.
So fuck all the other stuff
and fill your heart with love.

And maybe we will meet some day by some dumb luck, and I will give you a poem, and you will give me a hug,

And I will say that I wrote this poem for you, and glad that you read my book. And beauty is only skin deep, sometimes you need to take a closer look.

And maybe you will see the scars on my arms are far lesser than yours, and that is because I was giving this gift to write these rhymes,

I use my pen as a sword, to kill the negativity
Refill me when this world has gotten too much for me.

And yeah, I have to take medications.
And yeah I might be different,

But this gift that God gave me is the reason I am living.

And the ink isn’t drying, before the next page is written.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. This week’s poem is a selection from his forthcoming collection Train of Thought.