Can you not write about me?
Can you not write about me?
they ask
you might as well ask me if I can not breath for the rest of my life
the answer is no
I must write about you
for every poem is about a you
of sorts
and if I stop writing about you
I stop writing at all
and I cannot do that
for this is my life's calling
my life is the material of my work
and it really isn't about you
you are an impression
a moment of my truth
a thing in a story
passing in the wind in between the last poem I wrote and the poem I have yet to start
it is only about you to the you's who knows I speak of you
one person
the other hundred thousand
the other million
they don't know it's you
and a poem will never be the whole truth
no
that's impossible
horse shit
of course not
it's my truth
don't ask me to take it down
or alter it to be more true
to capture the whole story
art is objective--idiot
and good art is never neutral
it doesn't open the door for you
ask how you like your steak cooked
it bites with a truth that is only from one and for one--me
if you want to share your truth
write it yourself
I respect you by not naming you
respect me by never again asking me to remove my art.
Photograph by Jinna Yang @projectinspo
Janne Robinson is a 21st-century feminist beat poet. Her voice haunts with the legacy of early feminists and poets such as Gloria Steinem, Charles Bukowski, and Jack Kerouac. Her no sugar shit prose cuts with the honesty and simplicity of Bukowski and the romantic reliability of Kerouac. Her poetry leads like a woman, walking with fire in the footprints of Steinem—breathing sexual liberation, choice, and overall championing women to their birthright of not only equality but leadership.