I am a poet, first & foremost.

This means nothing – most people don’t want to even try to care about your poetry – unless it is “about” them. In which case, they will skim for keywords first – eyes darting. They will read the poem in full, because it probably isn’t too long. They might say “hmm” or “wow” or some variation of those two. But they won’t say anything you want to hear. Or maybe they’ll genuinely connect with it deep in their hearts and since you’re a good poet they will be enraptured by your stylistics and the kind of internal rhyming that doesn’t sound like rapping but a Shakespearean upgrade. Maybe they will tell you they can’t read English. Maybe they will make fun of you.

Maybe they will make FUN of you.

THE JIMSOMWEED DEALER

a poem by HYPER2SENSATIONS

why is my room getting smaller

when the wind wants nothing to do with me

cuz i’m running out of wood

because i lost a fight to a smaller tree

my hands are made of rubber

and my arms are made of skin

I took out all my muscles

because they were trying to keep me in

do you believe that what I said about earlier

when I said that I was saying what I said later

afterwards my house is turning on me the floor

bubbles out and it knocks me down and every man

that comes to fix it says he needs to call another

man downtown I wont work for free I wont work

for me I just work to work and I’m going berzerk

“Hey, little man.”