A Poem: Manifesto

If you put pen

To bright white paper

And challenge the emptiness

To games of touch football

And always try to get back up when the truth nocks you over

And remember to never let other people

Get in the way of a good story

And never let a good story

Get in the way of believing in others

I will call you author

If you scribble on napkins

Sobered reflections of nights past overdrawn

Like you ran out of credit for healthy living

And are just trying to make a budget

With two bucks and a cup of coffee.

Or if find yourself recounting the lessons of one too many

To your journal in a dark corner

Of a party meant for forgetting

I will call you writer

If you string “alone” to “bones” to “home” to “night” to “hope”

And drag them behind you

Running

Like they are a kite you can't give up on

I will call you poet

If you can't leave your mirror at home for fear it will tear up the furniture

And you spent too damn long building your love seat

To see it ripped to shreds by reflections of what they use to call you

And you try to make each moment a declaration

That mirrors are beautiful

When we stand in front of them

I will call you artist

If you remember with each breath

and cast every blink a new scene

in a life-long documentary about love and each snort

is a declaration we don't need things

to get easier and your smile holds the stories of those that came before you

I will call you queer

If you do none of these things

But breath through each day

And try to see yourself as mighty

And try to use that might for that which you believe to be right

I will call you creator

And I will be grateful

For all that will come to be

Through all that you are right now

Seattle, 2012