The Poetry I Knew

You Changed the world I always loved
The poetry I knew
Your version is contorted and deformed,
Why ask for creativity that is restricted and estranged?
Why not ask for a butterfly that is coiled up in chains?
You want to hold my hand while I chisel out a script.
How many more pains do you intend to inflict?

It’s easier this way - you say
My response:
Creativity was never meant to be cadged for display

You cut off its wings while it flew mid air
And I'm powerless to catch the bird - and that makes it so unfair.

The poem, the script, the piece of art,
It’s a piece I broke off my heart.
I break it off and hand it in,
You grade it and beak it - that piece off who I am

That is why I hate to hand it in unfinished.
Because the quality is diminished,

...And that quality was a piece of me.