here's what's real

here’s what’s real
on this page
with the shit and the blood and the drool
that come from the messy acts of human life
exactly from the beginning
with meconium and amniotic fluid and shreds of placenta
and the start of the beginning
with semen and mucous and sloughed-off uterine trash
seeping from our bodies as if it isn’t obvious
that metaphor is fact
and symbols are simply accessories
we hang around our throats
and dangle from our ears
here’s this poetry
here’s what’s real
outside the porcelain facades
of professionalism and accepted norms
our chemical selves in all our juicy mess
leave trails of truth shimmery as any snail’s