So she gambled with her compulsion,

writing down the words and words

that flowed over her mind

and out through her fingers

 

Brought there by whatever she saw

and heard, and felt

by the people she met

and the people she lost

 

Then she bet it all

sent the barely-fledged works

to sell themselves

at the high dark doors of publishers

 

Some trudged home bent with rejection –

too small-town and bling-less,

too suburban to even make it

into the colour-coded foyers

 

Others chanced to find

the eccentric and philanthropic,

who can’t let a potential verse

go homeless into the night

 

And so it seems

that she kind of broke even

losing some

and winning a few

 

Till today

having a cigarette outside,

she heard someone

quoting one of her poems aloud