An Open Letter To Poetry Contest Guidelines

I’m sitting at my desk typing on my computer. My head is a satellite broadcasting a disrupted signal. I can’t get a clear picture of what I want to write. The channel keeps changing as I switch between memories and then it happens. A message alerting me that I am now off-line and the “system is reconnecting.” It’s something to be said about how being unplugged charges you up. I soon began to pick up on a signal as clear as the sound of the bell when school is dismissed. The freedom to express myself is like a jolt of energy. I was shocked. I realized in my disconnected epiphany that containing written poetry, with procedural processes for seeking approval, and being paid a cash payment for placement, down to one page is preposterous. All the glory of poetry and its ability to take life’s pie and divide it into figurative slices is so fulfilling, and to think, I’m usually greedy, however, I’m willing to share my last slice of pain topped with passion and joy but it seems that you’re on some type of “character diet.” I guess the paper weight was too heavy. I guess my head was in the clouds. I guess it was just pie in the sky. Approximately 250 words can fill a typed page double-spaced. 100 words of love, 100 words of rage carefully placed. 50 shades of feelings reverberating self-induced healing, metaphor after metaphor leaving a reader reeling, the way words and their syllables intercourse with double meanings creating couplets on paper kneeling as if they were proposing to your intellect. With these words, I thee wed. I promise to be faithful and true, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, till death do us part, so help me, poetry... I am sitting at my desk typing. My mind is a sweet tooth that’s tasted a slice of heavenly pie. Unfortunately, you have to watch what you read and count characters, and I am done sharing.