Blood on the Page - Poem

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Greg Luti’s poem “Blood on the Page” explores the intense pressure a poet feels to bleed all his darkest secrets and hidden truths onto the page — the raw, unflinching confession a “good poet” is supposed to make.

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I was going to bleed all over the page here for you as a good poet should.

Good poets are adept at confessing things to their audience that no one really wants to hear.

When a soul confesses their life, though, it is okay and acceptable all of a sudden.

I was going to spill my soul in between the lines.

Allow every vowel to have a piece of it.

The odd lines can have my good deeds, and the even lines can have my bad deeds.

Or maybe I can randomly spill my soul all over the place.

The beginning of this will have the most.

I was going tell you all of me with these wicked words.

These disgusting, sick thoughts and ideas that I had.

To allow you to see inside my mind and that there are things that go on in there that I don’t want you to know.

Wicked, disgusting, sick things.

I was going to expose each lost secret I kept, each guarded dream I had.

Through the years, I have kept things to myself and never told anyone about them.

I had hopes in my life of what I was going to be.

I was going to tell you all of that.

But when I sliced my skin, nothing came out.

No blood spilled from my veins, for no blood was in me.

Only dust left my jaded temple.

I had to double-check to see if I had no blood inside of me.

Upon further inspection, there was not an ounce of blood in my body; nothing ran through me but myself.

I was about to give you my soul and all that it was, is, and can be.

The secrets, the wicked words, the secrets

But I need to have a soul first.

Over the years, as I grew older, I grew colder, and all that is in me now is the coldness I feel inside.

My body temperature is normal.

I have no cold.

I don’t have a fever.

Yet all that is in me is colder than Mr. Freeze.

I tried to harden my outside temple so as to shield myself from the dangers of this world,

Of the things that push me down and feed on my failures.

Little did I know, I was killing myself by hardening the very soul I tried to protect.

I wish I remembered what it was to be a human with emotions.

To cry real tears of sadness.

To love with real passion.

But each time I thought I was being tough, I was destroying myself.

I destroyed the sadness in me.

I no longer know how to cry.

I destroyed the love in me.

I no longer know how to love.

I destroyed the human in me.

I no longer know how to feel.

Now, I am left with an outer broken shell and the lost memory of a soul I once had.

One that knew of sadness and tears.

That could love myself and my lover.

One that knew of the full experience of being human.

My body once had blood I could spill for you.

My spirit had a soul I could share with you.

But I destroyed them.

Now I wonder what it ever felt like to have them.

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