POEM - Critical Mass

If I had thinner skin

She would have destroyed me

Ms. Professor-O-Poetry

Because my way of writing

Was not her way of writing

I thought it was personal

And sought solace

In the supportive words

Of the other woman

In the poetry department

The one who liked the way I wrote

Got what I was saying

Called my work a breakthrough

Those kind words gave me a breather

Let me sit back

Really look

At the smoking wreckage

Of my precious outpouring

The exquisite literary effort

Of carefully crafted analogies

Clever turns of phrase

And a solid overarching story line

She had decapitated it

Said the first third was unnecessary

Left me with little more

Than an outline

So few words

So many ideas dismissed

But I had that moment

In kinder rooms

And I realized my lie

Where my story faltered

I had tried to control

Craft and create

In order to impress

Be seen as better

Than her easy favorites

And I had fashioned

Elegant lies

In stanza and verse

I stepped back and considered

The little that was left

Realized the mercy in the slaughter

My control vaporized  

That’s when the poem took over

Said what it needed to say

Took on its own life

Told its own story

And when it was reborn

I was allowed to read it

The  room

Of critics

Left silent