This poetry
Is not art to me
These poems are peepholes into my heart
You see
These sentences are references
To everything I’ve done and felt and—
scenes described they aren’t just rhymes
They’re moments in time
in which I lived and loved and cried

This poetry
Is not art to me
These lines
Had no audience in mind
They don’t aim for perfection
They’re a collection
Of my reflections
My perceptions
My daily inquiries
They’re my diary
They aren’t art to me
They’re part of me
Sometimes the parts of me
I don’t want others to see

This poetry
Is not art to me
These poems are peepholes into my heart
You see
They’re vulnerability
My interpretation of the world told honestly
So sometimes they’re hard to read
And I speak timedly
It’s tough to be seen
Without a filter or a screen

We say
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder“—
Which should make you act bolder
Since everything is relative
A matter of perspective
But if the beholder
is someone you hold dear
I think that sentence just evokes fear;
With everything you share
The risk that you bare
Is finding out they might not care
About what moves you
Finding out they might not choose you
If they actually knew you

And this poetry
Is not art to me
These poems are peepholes into my heart
You see
They’re part of me
So they’re hard to read
And I speak timidly
…Mainly when it’s you and me
At first I couldn’t wrap my head around
Why it’s easier in front of a crowd
Than when it’s just us two
But I think it’s because I want to be enough for you
And these poems are peepholes into what I can give to you