a Poem in Response to Poetry Class

This is a rough draft. My professor wanted me to be more "nitty gritty" with my poetry and wanted them to be darker and more shocking; I wrote this as a way of disagreeing with this evaluation and also to give her what she wanted :) Enjoy!

Formaldehyde

The white page is carven

with pools and hesitant streams of

my lifeblood that pumps from

the desecration of my aortic valves.

Curious eyes of poetry professors glint with excitement;

the biology major opening the stiff cat

to find the prize of preserved kittens inside.

This paper is the formaldehyde 

Preserving my diction

That becomes

The stiffened legs of your specimen.

Your pen seeks out my story,

of a new mother raised in a crate

that just wanted the peace

of kittens at her teats.

Your pen scratches at my story,

Drawing blood,

And says that I should dwell in that cage

and kittens should not dictate

my mindset.

 It was my rough tongue and warm nose

That would greet my future.

My organs and veins

absent of life,

an exhibition of fascinating misery

and tortured solitude

is not an expression of who I was

am

and want to be.