I am a poet because
I love words and thoughts
because words tangle in my mind
and smooth on paper

and because my mind wanders
and my fears rise like bath water
and sometimes I am afraid to feel.

I am a poet because I am defiant
made raw and real
by love and nature

and sometimes I hurt until it festers
breaks loose

and because
I love to lie in my bed
with papers and pens
nailing love- cries to my heart

and because I sigh
under the baggage of the past

and I am a poet because I lived with ice blue shackles
and the pink eggshells of anger
and it needs to be told

and because I can breed moods
dramatic and still

and I am a poet because
I ache in secret and heal out loud

I am a poet because
German men killed baby Jews
and left mothers
with drooping, aching, empty breasts

and I am a poet because
someone killed John Lennon
for the fame of a skeletal moment

and I am a poet because
death makes us stupid with grief
and unbuttons vulnerability
making us cry glass tears

and I am a poet because
women are still ripped into sparks
and scattered like stale bread

and I am a poet because
I feel terror when I sleep
an insomniac woman
with a cottonmouth tongue
demanding to be heard

and I am a poet because
Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an over
leaving babies with bread and jam
and because Anne Sexton had more to say

and I am a poet because
racism needs to be thrown off like a cloak,
holding our hearts

and because bombs explode
and planes crash
and young boys are buried with American flags
and the world is still in secondary love

I am a poet because babies are thrown in trash cans,
left in bathrooms
because someone wished they were someone else

and because people are hungry
while others with meat-cutting knives
stab into human flesh

and because there is no apology for smoke billowing factories
spreading poison on playgrounds
where children laugh in homeboy-style
and 30 years later, die stiff-lunged

and I am a poet, because homophobes
hide behind velvet hats pressing hatred
against their lips
and the white crusted mouth sores of A.I.D.S.,
seal bodies in polished oak
and we make quilts to remember the silent sleepers

and because even though this world can be dangerous and unforgiving,
offensive and frantic,

I still believe still believe in you
and still believe in me
I still believe in love.

DianaMay-Waldman is an award-winning journalist whose articles and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. She was also co-editor with her husband,Mitchell Waldman (author of PETTY OFFENSES AND CRIMES OF THE HEART) of theanthologies HIP POETRY 2012 (Wind Publications, 2012)), and WOUNDS OFWAR: POETS FOR PEACE, and is Poetry Editor for Blue Lake Review.She is a strong women's and children's advocate.