Do you hide behind words?

Today is a first. Today I put one of my poems here on the blog. Often I hide them away, often when they are personal. But then, today, at my writers’ circle meeting I realise I have to face facts. I am a poet at heart. I just added a category to my blog, called Poetry to prove it.

This is me – my heart on my sleeve, my words on the page. Please tell me what you think of it.

Word wall

“I hide behind words.”
Those were my words,
popped out before I knew.
And then I saw that they were true.

I hide behind words.
I make them dance and sing
so I don’t have to.
I make them cry,
so I don’t have to.
Simply put
I make words say big things
that otherwise remain
zipped tight, behind my lips.

Yet how I love to see words, everywhere –
on the page, the walls, the sides of trains
and scratched into the sand.
There I can focus on the grooves and dips,
the jagged lines, that I may be gladly blind
to the space they leave behind.

If I knot the thread the tells the story of my life,
unraveled, uncensored, umbilical
then there will be places where the string’s tied tight
to bury certain tales inside its tangled skeins
and thereby mask the pain.

Words can loop the loop
with cursive hand
and fill that scary page’s blankness,
sully the pure white.
Stop the silence.
White noise
deafens me.
I shield my eyes
yet keep writing.

You see words protect me.
Their eloquence belies the stilted childlike voice inside.
Italics skew the facts.
Bold puts emphasis on phrases that do not, in truth, deserve so.

And as my sentences stretch and flex their claws,
reach out towards the margins of the things I may expose,
I keep them on their toes.
Will I, won’t I?
Maybe.
Not.

I let them out just so they may justify my craft
then call them home swiftly.

Oh yes, I make my words work hard for their keep.
I let them believe they are my slaves.
They do my will. I am their master.
But secretly I am glad that they are prone to gossip,
blab, spread rumours when my back is turned.
My words can read between the lines
and so can I.
That’s why I do it.

And yes, you’re right, before you ask -
my word wall is made of glass.