Legalize Normalcy

If you call yourself a poet

You’re judged by your degrees,

The person who you voted for,

How often you hug trees,

Whether you can rhyme things

Or use semicolons right

And, most important, whether

You have a penis or are white.

I am not a poet,

Though to you that’s no surprise.

I’d rather sleep in Saturday

Than watch the sun arise.

I do not care for wheelbarrows

On which so much depends.

I’m one of the mere commoners

Whom nobody defends.

I write, not for an audience,

But for the ones like me

Who want to dance the rain away

And feel completely free

But have to read a book about

What things are right to say,

Waiting to dance in private

Once the poets go away.

I feel like a geode,

Full of color, trapped in stone,

But thanks to anonymity

I needn’t be alone.

I can be with all of you

And hold you in my heart

By failing to see beauty

In what poets call their art.