<\/p>\n
The poem is much bigger than me
\nit was the very first lesson
\nthat I learned
\nto forget
\nSo at first
\nI would approach it
\nunder moonlight
\nI would shave pieces from its edges
\nI would place them in my pocket
\nAt poetry shows
\nI would stack my poetry pieces
\nbefore strangers
\nbeneath stage lights
\nlet them bake in the heat
\nblow away like dust
\nThis stage is so much bigger than me
\nso I could never take it home
\nthough I tried
\nto squeeze it through my door
\nOne time
\nI took the poetry pieces from my pocket
\nplaced them in a glass of water on my desk
\nwhile I slept
\nIn the morning
\nmy home had become the fragments of itself
\nthe poem stood in its place
\nboth proud and true
\nNow my home was so much bigger than me
\nI could neither push nor pull it
\nI crawled inside
\nit beat me to the punch
\nit was already in me
\ncoursing through my veins
\nlonging to grow
\nso much bigger than me
\nI spit it out
\nas much as I could gather in my mouth
\nnow my mouth is
\nso much bigger than me
\nI filled rooms with my words
\nTelevision camera crews
\ngathered below what was once my bedroom window
\nStephen Harper put my name on a list
\nthat too was a poem
\nso much bigger than me
\nI saw no escape
\nthere was no way out alive
\nI returned to place it all began
\nshaved more poetry pieces from its edges
\nplaced them in a envelope
\nlike a note which read:
\nDear Stephen Harper,
\nYou are the reason the trees don’t talk anymore
\nwhy the are shut up in hard bodies
\nyou traded their tongues for buried treasure
\nbut the map
\nwas written in a language you could never understand
\nall the words were in dream sound
\nand all the pictures seemed blurry
\nbut now
\nthe trees
\nthey sing the ever resilient song of the chainsaw
\nthey imagine themselves as tables and chairs
\nand you are the reason
\nthe mighty oak
\ncan already smell the feast on its back
\nSigned,
\nBrad
\nAnd as you may have already guessed
\nhe never wrote back
\nIt seems some poems are far to large to swallow whole
\nso we don’t
\nbut they keep growing
\nso much bigger than me
\nso much bigger than all of us<\/p>\n