This poem was originally published on 14 December 2017.

What do you want from me?
It stares back at me.
Do you want me
To bleed honestly?
Because I –
Don’t know how to do that.

I don’t know how to dig;
If I were born into
A family of builders
Maybe I would
Know how
To sing
While constructing
The truth.

But I was never
Handed down
Bricks and wet cement
I was given words
And full stops
And commas
A couple line breaks

Here.
A couple there.

What do you want from me?
Do you want to know
What I want from you?
I want this ink to form gold
And smiles to hang from commas
On either side
And people’s whistles
To be plugged with full stops.

But I can’t tell you that.

I hear the glorious
Is what it is
Only because teeth grind for it.
That’s all right.
I was never much of a
Digger anyway.