the twelve disciples of a poet
pride
pride latches onto glory like a drug, tempered only by the iron grip of failure. pride pushes a poet to be more than a poet should ever be. pride gives your voice a name and tells you that the whole world should know it. pride puts that coat on your shoulder and tells you to square up with the best of the best. pride knows that you have your own story to tell. pride will see that story through.
guilt
guilt lurks in the alleyway below your window, wishing to devour your every word. guilt wishes for the most vicious words that will cut your insides open until you are nothing but a vessel for it. guilt carves out your insides to make way for the unsaid. guilt is the cruel artist to your quiet poet. guilt only knows how to haunt. guilt wishes it does not.
wonder
wonder is thrumming against your windpipe, singing to be let out. wonder is the biggest hummingbird in a field of flowers you’ve never seen. wonder never picks up after itself, for it will have you running after it as long as it shines. wonder will have all of a poet’s words and still you will find more. wonder rises and it never comes back down.
longing
longing curls up in a poet’s gut, wishing for a different name. longing stands in those doors left swaying in the cold. longing stares at hunger and calls it impatient. longing sinks into your skin until you don’t know where it starts and you end. longing watches them leave. longing does not call out for them to stay. longing waits. longing always waits.
love
love takes the form of any muse on any canvas. love is the enigma who doesn’t need to ask to be captured. love curls up your spine and you realize it’s been there all along. love knows many names but it wishes to learn yours. love wants to live in the spaces between your words. love gives you something to write home about. love is home. love will be here in the morning.
grief
grief has ink-tipped claws for hands and pockets of debt. grief constantly looks over your shoulder, waiting for the next best thing to call its own. grief sits in the bath with you and coerces you to remember. grief covers a poet’s eyes with both its hands until it is the only thing they see. grief always comes when a poet calls. grief comes even when there is no call to heed.
faith
faith waits by the door waiting for you to come back. faith is staring into the jaws of death and leaping off the cliff anyway. faith throws a poet headfirst into the deep, knowing that they will find their way back to the shallows with the best stories to tell. faith is a loving and cruel hand, guiding a poet towards what couldn’t be known.
pain
pain lives inside a poet’s ribcage and plays bingo with their heart. pain drums its fingers down your sternum, playing a tune only you can hear. pain molds like water to fit the spaces inside your breastbone, inside all the places it does not belong. pain burns like fire until you don’t know how to live without the taste of it on your skin. pain begets the kind of beauty only a poet can capture.
beauty
beauty leaves you starving. beauty is too much for a glance to linger. beauty seeks out every ounce of fear and laughs. beauty is its own incarnate and all you can do is write about it. beauty is the cardinal sin of a poet. beauty has its fingers laced around your throat and it is the last thing you see before you black out. beauty does not care. beauty simply is.
cruelty
cruelty loves to feast. cruelty sings you to sleep until you can’t stop seeing it in your dreams. cruelty drowns the voices out and replaces them with its own. cruelty loves a poet who cannot stop writing to survive. cruelty is the nail in the coffin that a poet claws their way out from. cruelty does not forget you, and nor do you it.
hope
hope does not know where it comes from. hope has all the answers and none of the ways to tell you. hope sits just out of reach, knowing that you’ll always find a way back to it. hope will live as long as you pick up that pen. hope lives on even after the ink dries. hope borrows bodies to keep itself going. hope has chosen you.
vengeance
vengeance is the doppelganger of a shattered heart. vengeance is the lifeblood of those who know what it feels like to lose. vengeance burns itself into your page. vengeance knows how to keep a dead body walking. vengeance promises to keep your hollowness filled. vengeance loves nothing more than to color the obsessions of a poet. vengeance knows you don’t have to win.
