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The Young Poet

I have done it again.
Nine tries in every ten
I fail

To write something satisfyingly
Morbid.

I am not used
To acting like a real all-out poet

Yet.
Inspiration struggles to push through me
Like blood trudging through the crowded arteries of a hefty man awaiting cardiac arrest.
(No, not so slow and closed, exactly.)
Like hot expanding corn in a tiny orange kernel.
(No, that's a little too violently explosive.)
Like...

(My trashcan is a graveyard
For poor, forlorn creatures with
Paper skins that barely
Conceal weak skeletons
Made of wasted ink.
They shift and silently welcome a new brother.)

I'll figure out the analogies later. 

It doesn't matter what
It's "Like" until I get
The lifestyle down,
Anyway. 

Successful poets must fit
The part
As well as write it. But 

So far (unfortunately),
I am without
Manic-depression,
Paranoid schizophrenia,
The glorious exile of a social outcast,
Suicidal thoughts,
Or a single, measly physical handicap. 

(I sit among the square pegs
And watch them struggle
Enviously. They are
Wedged in round holes.
And I long for facets
And edges
And hate
My circle shape.)

I wear navy
(dark blue)
And maroon
(kind of purple-red?)
And onyx-colored turtlenecks.
(black, itchy sweaters)

But I'm afraid
Emily would less than welcome
A comparison of my gaudy
Amateur-poet brain
With her cerebral service. 

And at seventeen years I'm afraid
I'm very far behind Sylvia at twenty
As far
As near-death experiences go.
(The score is zero to two,
Sylvia.)

I suppose I'm a coward for
Preferring to die naturally.

I suppose I will never be a poet.
But I am hopeful. 

Danielle Cosio