I Hope No One Reads This Poem

i hope it is set aside, perhaps

a title read and then forgotten.

perhaps it elicits a chuckle

before it is gone.

i hope it never makes it

to poetry-workshop tables

surrounded by grad students

and an over-excited professor

talking about the purposefulness

of my line breaks, the perfection

of my enjambment, the beauty

of my metaphors. what did i mean

by this?

i hope it doesn't keep you up

at night, wondering: is the lowercase

"i" on purpose, a deliberate expression

of melancholy or a demeaning

of the self? or is it just a symptom

of my inability to press the shift key

on my computer, because it

"disrupts my creative flow"

or something?

i hope the internet crashes

and burns

and archeologists in a million years

don't try to piece together

the digital fragments of

these words.

i hope they never teach me

in high school english classes:

analysis of form and figurative language.

here's a simile for you:

this poem is like a snowflake.

good for a moment,

but destined to melt

deep into the soil.

life is only precious 'cause it ends.

this poem is only precious

because it is mundane,

easily buried, easily forgotten.

i am not meant to be the focus of

your life's work. i am meant only as

a product of my own

life's work.

do not analyze me.

there is never only one answer,

never only one interpretation

for who i am

and what i mean.