Spoken Word, Don’t Destroy My Work

I originally written this back on April 12th, 2013.

Artwork by Mellyssa A. Diggs

To the person reading this poem
To person hovering over this with their eyes and a pen
Waiting to say kind, patient words in response, do me a favor:
Stop it.
Don’t Patronize me.
I did not slave over life with hammer and anvil
Shaping my goals into a masterpiece.
I didn’t paint it onto the ceiling of some church,
Going blind from the pain and the stress.
I didn’t waste any time.

And while I’m writing this,
You can bet I’m not concerned with cars and rims and materialistic things.
No, I’m concerned with how much water is left in my water bottle.
I’m concerned with my dreams and achieving.
This isn’t a masterpiece.
Who are we kidding?
I just write because I am.
You’re not going to hurt it, and you most certainly aren’t going to hurt me.
So stop it.
Don’t patronize me.

I don’t want you to destroy my work.
I don’t want you to rip it to shreds with sadistic glee.
Tear it apart from margin to margin;
Laugh openly at its crippled, struggling body.
Stab through its beating heart with the sharp edge of your pen..
I mark this as your own.
My release from the world around me.

You don’t need to handle this with all the delicacy and surgical precision
of a butcher in a slaughterhouse
of a Craigslist killer and rapist
in the middle of a busy city street.

Touching this is like ripping through my dreams
Jabbing a knife through the soft flesh of my stomach
And gut it like a fish.
Watch it gargle to breathe as letters pour out of the wounds.

You want persona?
I am the speaker.
This is my pulsating blob of a poem.
And you are Jack the Ripper. Get it?
You are the sin the evil that is trying to place upon me.
So don’t destroy my work.

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