Untelling the Lies
By
Radiance Angelina Petro
All poetry
Fesses up
To something.
No matter
If you, the composer,
Sing of witches,
City streets,
Serbian atrocities,
Mountains, or rivers.
You reveal something
Of yourself
That cannot be easily hidden
To the naked eye
And ear.
You can try
To compose
Anonymously,
But that is like
Your breath
Being anonymously breathed
From your own lungs.
I write of aliens, fireflies,
Roots, little epiphanies,
And sometimes
Poems funnel
Through about being
Intersex and trans,
But in each and every word,
Each coma, line-spacing,
And pause, you see
Me, and know a little bit more
About me.
Let go of whether
Or not your songs
Are confessional—merely
Confessional.
You cannot prevent your poems
From showing
Your hand
Any more than you can
Stop pain
From reflecting itself
In your eyes.
So go ahead,
Speak to us.
Admit things
About yourself
That can be cleverly
Couched in syllables
And roots. Tell us
Who you are—
It is important,
And in doing so
You are helping vulnerability
Become as common place
As shame, and, with any luck,
Even more so.
For in the same way
You cannot conceal
Yourself between the lines
Or the words,
You cannot shirk
From the responsibilities
Writing them brings either.
You see, you and I,
Each has their own sets
Of responsibilities and reasons
As to why and when and how
We write, and, over time,
We must discover what those are
Because no matter what
They are—they are ultimately moral
And in need of fulfilling,
Just as water fulfills the ocean.
Every poem ever written
Fesses up to something.
So proclaim.
Expel demons.
Revolutionize.
Attest to resiliency.
Steel entire nations
Against storms of dryness.
And as you breathe life
Into lines and symbols,
Resuscitating the word–
You
Are shedding
Light,
As a snake sheds skin.
Only the light you shed sonars
Into the atmosphere
Revealing obstacles here
Or there for others to avoid,
Keeping in mind
Some obstacles
Are as necessary
As kisses.
In other words:
People are watching, waiting, listening,
For you to speak—
To speak some truth
They always needed to hear,
But only now, from you, can.
With every poem
You write, you are helping
Each of us unlearn
What we should have
Never learned.
You are helping
Destroy the world
Of a loneliness that is pandemic,
And helping create
Soul-expanding
Congruencies between people
Of all shapes, sizes, genders,
Races, ethnic backgrounds, ages,
Economic statuses, and political leanings.
Look around.
See how much beauty
There is,
How much light
Comes to you
Or that you believe you
Draw down, or through,
Or up-from
Yourself—
It doesn’t matter
What you believe
About the origins of the revelation,
What matters is
You shine yourself to yourself,
And, more importantly,
You shine to others.
That is how we expose the lies
That need untelling.
That is how we exercise shame
Into its rightful place
Of gone.
That is how we become
Who we always secretly wanted
To be.
