Private Practice

When people ask me what I do

I'll tell them I have a private practice

Because it's easier than saying
I write these secret poems about you

The kind I put on my blog

But not Facebook

Because I know that you'll only find them

If your searching

Which unveils the care you're hiding from me

That in silent rooms you shout me

Breathing in the echo of my name

The thrill of testing you

Supplements that of loving you

And using words as intense as love in my poems

When thy're premature

When I'm not sure I feel them yet

You've changed my writing

I've lost the internal rhythms and rhymes

Things are less calculated now

I'm not writing to impress

To improve my craft

I'm writing to understand my own thoughts

For the first time I've become the reader

They're products of empty moments

Quality time between me and my head

I'm rejected the impulse to continue with what sounds good

What will transform this into entertainment
I'm not basing it off the story

I'm trying to write it

You should be proud

You've got me naked

Not dressed in embellishments and false passion

Crafting theatrical affections

Over and over until I've convinced myself they're real 

I'm not accustomed to falling in love without my pen

Confliction and affliction

My inability to determine if any of it is sincere 

Is foreign to me

I'm wrapping my arms around an unfamiliar form 

Because for the first time in my career 

There is no audience

I'm writing these (love?) poems for myself

They're not meant for page viewers

Or acclaim

Reception is insignificant

And I can't explain how bizarre it is for me to own my own art

I thought I've sold the rights to my work

To pay for my creative license

It's terrifying to have this power

The liberty to write honestly

Not eloquently

But no one wants authenticity

Love is blindness

Talent is facade

Adoration's expiration date

Is until deemed realistic

And I can't be a public figure 

With a private practice.