Dear Poetry

Poetry, you hold my fears you hold my hopes on your shins in your groin around your neck-- all the places I've been told to hit a stranger, if it ever came to that. I write on this paper tracing over letters and words until there is so much ink it could never dry. I could hang this paper on a clothesline, press my hand against it tomorrow or in two months-- the ink will always leave its mark like a henna tattoo on the back of my hand. I'm spelling out my hopes, shielding them with my fears, containing them on the page but they are getting everywhere. How could I ever have thought poetry could hold the excess fear and hope, hope and fear, spilling out of me? No space can contain all of this, not even these letters and words inking this page.