Billy Collins

Introduction To Writing

I ask them to take my stories,

to treat them like a freshly painted canvas,

and to study their many layers of differently colored paint,

or take them and organize them in a little book

like newly bought stamps.

I say turn the poem inside out,

to better see what its trying to say.

I want them to plant seeds in my stories,

and watch how they all grow differently,

turning into many different flowers.

But all they want to do is unravel its very meaning,

bleeding to death,

trying to understand their own crimes.

They start to slowly demean it

to realize what it truly means.