The schoolmaster shoved a smorgasbord 
of poems down our throats, so that we would know
that poems can be anything so poems can be good,
even possible. But I’ve swallowed too many

poems for me to know what a poem is anymore—
the only common thread I can see is broken lines. 
In fact, every single line inside is broken.

Still, they call it music, a big bang, a masterpiece,
a picture—worth a thousand words.

I don’t have a thousand words, 

but I am worth them—
am not quite music, but a picture of it,
am only filled with broken lines whose 
brokenness can’t harm my good, 

am worthy of quenching the thirst in peoples’ throats, 
am some explosion of individual, am possible. 
I am, of my potential, my proof.