To Be a Poet

To be a poet is not to write poems.  

No. 

Most anyone can do that. 

Most anyone has done that, 

for school, maybe. 

To be a poet is to see a tree  

and not just see a tree,  

to see the hungry branches reaching to the sun  

trying to grasp something, 

but never quite reaching it.  

Because to be a poet is to have words rushing through your blood, 

to need poetry like oxygen, 

to see a dandelion and think of a past love 

so beautiful, taking up your being, 

but then to blow away with all your hopes and dreams, 

exactly like you did to me. 

To be a poet is to live in the in-betweens, 

between real life and fantasies, 

to know the deepest truths 

and believe the greatest lies. 

And I don't know if anyone can be a poet, 

or if it's just how you're born, 

but I know that poetry is more than just the words 

because to be a poet is not only about poetry, 

it's about the world that those poems let you see.