on writing

I close my eyes and write.

How is it that you read my words and
mark up my pages,
bleeding across my poem?
How can you tell me that
I am no good,
when in the silence of an empty classroom,
I see shades of grass,
veins on leaves, frozen on the ground;
I hear painful cries,
joyous laughter, ink flowing out of its pen.
I taste my life,
and it lingers in the back of my throat
before swallowing.
I feel my poem.

I do not listen to you
talk, and
slap you in the face and
while you're stunned on the ground
kick you and spit in your eyes.
I do not rip out your tongue,
replace it with another,
and have you begin again.

I may not dazzle you
with my range, or
exhilarate you with my intimacy and grace,
but how can I express to you
when you do not listen with my ears?

I close my eyes and write.