You Know Your Addicted To Poetry If

1. You walk around all day trying to think of unusual words that rhyme and new things to say. 2. You spend too much time online or in bookstores looking for poetry and other books that make you feel or think that you, too might become a famous, published poet. 3. You believe and tell your family, friends, and anyone else who will listen that you’re the reincarnated body, mind and soul of Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson. 4. Your family and friends think you’re a little bit nutty for occasionally stopping mid-sentence or in the middle of a meal to excuse yourself to write something down quickly in your “Think Pad” lest you lose the thought forever and cry yourself to tears trying to remember it later on. 5. You go crazy in the bathroom when that one “great idea” lands in your head but you’re unable to write it down because you’re glued to the toilet seat. 6. You become jealous of other poets who obviously “stole” your great idea out of thin air – while you were still composing it on that cushy toilet seat. 7. You stay awake too late at night torturing yourself over the tough decision to write another poem or to read and comment on someone else’s poem (here in Poetry Soup). 8. You wake up every morning wishing you could write another poem but face the sad reality that life sucks and you have to go to work instead. 9. You have to live with the fact that for all intensive purposes, you live alone inside yourself with all your poetic thoughts and feelings. Few if any close members of your family, friends or associates don’t have a clue that you’re thinking and writing about things far more important than your next meal or what’s coming on TV. 10. You’re proud of who you are and what you do and have a deep sense of satisfaction and appreciation for the complexities of life despite what others may or may not think about you. You know you’re part of a bigger plan and an integral and small yet important piece of the wider universe and that no matter who reads or doesn’t read your poetry, at the end of the day it’s been worth it. And so are you and all you do.