"You Aren't Allowed To Write About Me"

Hi! This year (2022), I’ve decided to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

1. My spoken voice
2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me”



If by aren’t allowed, you mean you forbid it, then who are you to forbid?

If by write, you mean think, tell stories, try to understand, to recreate 
you in a way that isn’t such a jackass, 
I’m sorry, but you can only be improved,
and you’re missing out. 

The you on the page is so much better than the you in life. 

If by me you mean just you, I’m sorry, 
but stories (even characters, even real-life 
characters) are bigger than just one me, 
just one you, just one. 

None of us are just one.  

Why don’t you try to imagine what it’s like 
to not have a Lexus and enough money 
to have your back shaved? Why don’t you try 
to imagine what it’s like to listen to you asking someone 
if they are ‘really an American,’ or telling them they look 
like a pumpkin because they’re wearing an orange dress. 
What it’s like to hold a given-to-you bouquet 
and know that it will wilt because you don’t have 
the water to let it survive, to go 
in the shower and pray for warmth? 
Why don’t you imagine what it’s like 
to live bigger than who you are, 
trying to push into who you are meant to be? 
Imagine that’s more than a Lexus. 

Why don’t you imagine? 

I am not allowed to write about you. 

I write about you constantly 
even when you don’t realize. 
You are the grit between my teeth.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in Carrie, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called A Feather and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.

While Carrie only posts poems weekly here, she has them (in written form) almost every weekday over on Medium. You should check it out!

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eric-van-der-westen/the-crown-lobster-trilogy-selection