My Poetry Is Not For Your Entertainment

This piece was inspired by the gentleman who sat next to me a few weeks ago at an open mic and asked me if I were going to perform. When I said no and asked him the same question he answered with “nah. I just came to be entertained”

I looked at him and told him I didn’t like that answer and we dialogued about it. And although I was unable to articulate, in the moment, why I considered his comment offensive.. I told him I would write about it.. When I sat down to write, I was unsure how my thoughts would manifest themself, but this piece is the product of that writing.

My poetry is not for your entertainment.

My pain doesn’t bleed as ink on these pages for your amusement. For your oohs and aahs. Your snaps and claps.. this is not some fucking puppet show. These are my feelings. These are my worries. My stories. This is my life. This is my joy, my peace, my.... therapy.

My poetry is not for your entertainment.

This isn’t Saturday night live. The late show. Comedy Central (is Comedy Central still a thing?) 🤷🏽‍♀️

I digress. 

My tears don’t fall down my cheeks because I want to make my poem look “real”. Nah, it’s because I feel every word that escapes my lips, I inhale every vowel

Exhale every consonant 

Sometimes you get my personal shit

Sometimes I try to make you cognizant 

Of what the fuck is happening in the world

But the one things that’s constant 

Is that my poetry is not for your entertainment.

It’s not shits and giggles or laughs and gags

I don’t bare my soul for the right to brag 

This shit is real to me

It’s a big deal to me

And whether or not you feel me

It heals.... ME

and though i hope helps you too

I don’t give a fuck if it’s entertaining.. 

I didn’t come to entertain you

I don’t write these words 

So that a mundane you

Can find humor in the shit that I’ve gone through 

The men who’ve wronged me, the job I hate, 

The family that’s stressing me or the fact that i can’t wait until being Black is legalized.

But I don’t even want to go down that road tonight. 

I just want to bring to light the fact that my poetry is not for your entertainment. 

So don’t just come here to be entertained

But to receive postitive energy and emit the same

Come for the vibes, come for the healing, come for the exchange 

Of ideas, and passion. And pleasure and pain

But please.. do not insult my art by saying you came to be....

entertained?!??

MY POETRY IS NOT FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT