The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

I look and feel like a myth. A story distorted,

what’s the point of God giving me life if I can’t live it as my own?

When I’m told fear and fire are all this life will hold for me.

Sharing space, but not words.

If my body was a Country Club soda bottle, it’s one that has been shaken and dropped and at any moment it’s gonna pop open and surprise the whole damn world.

The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.

There is freedom in coming and going for no other reason than because you can.

Nothing. But at least there’s tomorrow. At least there’s poetry.

I sit wondering how writing can bring such strange strangers into the same room.

Because so many of the poems tonight felt a little like our own stories. Like we saw and were seen. And how crazy would it be if I did that for someone else?

but I’ll always have your back, and I’ll always protect your heart.”

And I’ve never heard something more deserving of a perfect ten.

A lantern glowing in the dark.