Character

There aren’t enough words to create a barrier and

when I was in college

I had a professor who taught me that

I have a lot to hide.

I’d written this character in a short story

and she was a hero of some kind

saved the president or something

I don’t rememberI don’t like writing poetry because

it’s too revealing.

and that part doesn’t really matter.

The thing is

she was giving a talk

to some high school students and

at the end

after saying all the stuff she was supposed to

she pushed back her sleeves to show her scars

and told the kids that that this strength

comes with a cost

My professor filled up the margins

with his dark ink

and scrawled admonition

that self-harm

isn’t a plot point

and I shouldn’t be telling him

things I didn’t understand.

He didn’t ask

a college student

why she was thinking

about cutting.

Why this

publicly strong

character revealing her apparent weakness

would be on my mind.

He just filled up the margins with his own words

and that was it.

So on the one hand

it was a success

because he didn’t see it anyway.

But I still don’t like poetry

because I need to craft a place to hide.