The Poet

Am I the thinker, fated to dwell at hell's dark gate?
The words, like storms, crash in my skull—
relentless, pleading to be written, a curse or gift, I ask God?
I can whisper beauty so soft it curls into your soul,
and in that moment, we are the only ones who exist.
You blink, bewildered, and say, "How do you do this?
I've confessed to you things I’ve never dared to speak, not even to my therapist."
It starts with a simple question—"If you could pick a memory to relive what would it be and why?"
I watch you slip away, carried by something so sacred,
it stirs tears you didn’t know you could cry.

Who stands vigil at hell's gate?
Writers, actors, priests—or the housewife with the perfect smile,
her dreams crumbling beneath pies and polite smiles?
My mind, teeming with visions, aches with the weight of them,
all demanding to be held in ink.
I wonder, if I gave my craft everything not just half—could I birth poetry every day?
But some days, I can’t summon a single thought,
though life constantly feeds me, pulling me into its endless embrace.

I ask God—am I losing myself?
Madness is my inheritance, a ghost that trails the women of my line,
whispering of lost sanity.
Yet every word breathes life in me,
they press against my temples, a headache I cannot quiet.
Sometimes they strike me in the dead of night,
other times at work, or in the grasp of dreams—
they wake me, begging to be released into the world.

I watch the world’s dance of excess, blind to its own purgatory.
They don’t know, but we are already in hell.
Earth—this is the inferno.
They call me eloquent,
accuse me of forging my own art, as if these words cannot be mine.
So I speak the truth: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
For I am the poet, the one who sits at the gate of hell,
and the words will never let me rest.

NP