This is not my first year submitting a poetry or prose piece for Kansas City Voices since KC is where I was born and raised.  I've been submitting since I graduated high school in the '90s.  My first piece was "When it Snows"  That poem is now published in my book "I See..." by Kat J Phillips.  See link below poem to my book at AuthorHouse.  Check out this link to submit your own work. https://whisperingprairiepress.submittable.com/submit

The Poem is about a real life experience!!! 
The Metal Man

Rough and metal ravaged
Some would say freak
But I know...
Underneath the Metal...
Sweet

Opened my mouth
The mousy hello
Just as I thought...
Intelligence...
From the fellow flowed

Fellow writer
Fellow love of people
Fellow demons
Fellow battles with life

Metal has injuries
Metal has scares
Metal has a heart
That won't be kept behind bars

Polite and sincere
Metal is friendly and calm
With every word,
To Metal...
I was drawn

Piercings cover 
The face of Metal
Symmetrical and refined
Just like the phrases
Metal spoke from his mind.

There was another in our midst
Running circles...
Untamed
You'd think the Metal man would anger
But no...
He spoke to him as if sane

As if he was normal
Not hyper at all
The Metal man,
Soothes the Hyper man,
And the conversation...
...moves on
With all.

My mother by my side
Neither of us feel a need to hide
From the Metal or the Hyper
We looked through the divide. 

So now our two is four 
And the hour went by
When I stood to leave
A great warmth lingered inside

I knew...
I still had it
The love of human kind,
What Metal brought out...
Was another remind.

©2023 Kat J Phillips

Poem and Artwork Photo © 2023
 "I see… what others refuse to see.
I am… what others refuse to be"
Lady Kate Phillips

https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/750190-I-See