The way they teach poetry in schools

Is not the only way it can be written

               Structured stanzas

             and 

  parallel pantoums

Put a limit on how poets can      speak what they FEEL

    Creativity cannot be defined

By rubrics and letter grades

                  free

Rather, it’s  

An imagination               unleashed                 like a wild extended metaphor                              

Bounding 

              over lines  in a notebook, leaving smeared ink trails across paper and skin

When you’re too impatient to let the ink dry

Because the words arealreadythere

Waiting in the forefront of your thoughts . . .

                                to be written down . . .

                                                    And shared with the world.