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Poetry does not belong to you. It was created before your great great grandmother could wipe the tears of her first born son. It was created before the campfires and the rhythm of the drum.

It does not belong to you. Poetry was written on dewdrops and scribbled on flint rock. Before slam judges could start their stopwatch. Before you spent your nights wracking your brain on how to get the highest score because in last nights’ slam, your average score was a four. Or which sex poem would get the chick at tonight’s open mic to take off her clothes.

It does not belong to you. Your rhythm was stolen from the tree branch tapping against your pane right before the sky goes black and you can smell the rain. Your catchphrases were stolen from dozens games as Hughes rolls over in his grave. You fabricated your decision to ditch your education and study BET because you thought that a major record label was going to help you make it. Your sense of struggle was waiting for Sojourner to make it while you rolled up one to blaze it and I had to write these lines to save you.

It does not belong to you. Poetry belongs to young boys pounding lunch table rhythms while beat-boxing and free-styling. Poetry belongs to the women that are raising their children in a single parent home. To busy to reach their goals, to have a man to call her own and all the clothes that her hips have now outgrown. As soon as she saw you walk off the stage, she decided to spare her life because compared to the power in the words you write, she realized that a whole bottle of Oxycontin couldn’t change her life. Not like you did tonight. Poetry hangs hope in the wind by loose strands of melodies carried in alto by blue-haired church ladies, sporadic cries of newborn babies, and ladies trying to remain a lady while he walks away.

Poetry belongs in the ache in your great uncle’s back as he beats old slave spirituals on chain gang Monday afternoons. His face holds 13 years of pride, knowing he’ll be home soon.

Poetry belongs to the unborn child’s heartbeat as she places headphones over her belly to pump Miles’ tunes through her womb.

Poetry belongs to the man that has to choose between the bottle he holds close and the wife he’ll soon lose. His two little girls try not to cry as daddy whispers, “I’ll only be gone for a little while.” Later on in his hotel room, finds a crumbled up poem that you left behind, changes his mind and tosses his bottle aside and goes home. Poetry is the strength to know that we need each other to be complete.

Poetry does not belong to you. It does not belong to me. It was created before your great great grandmother could wipe the tears of her first born son. It was created before the campfires and the rhythm of the drum.