I’m not a poet. I’ve never really been a big fan of poetry. Poetry has always been one of those things that I’ve struggled to understand, especially those highly ambiguous poems where it almost seems like the writer is intentially _trying_ to confuse the reader or writes in _such_ abstract terms that it feels like they’re trying to deliver a text-based PCP trip.

Some people seem to have a natural talent for writing poetry. For them, it flows from heart to mind to pen and paper as easily as the rest of us draw breath. Rhyming verse, free verse, even iambic pentameter is like nothing to them. Most of these are a pleasure to read, though I know that I will never be able to emulate them.

It’s probably ironic, then, that there is a certain kind of poetry that often creeps into my own writing. It’s not something that I ever plan. I don’t spend any time thinking about how to tailor my words so that they sound musical or poetic. It just sometimes happens that when I finish a story and read back over it, there is that poetic element that exists in the words. These are the stories that are so very satisfying because it means that the story took on a life of its own, seemingly penning its own words and simply using me as the medium for its own expression.

I’m not a poet, but I sometimes play one as a writer.