Identity Crisis

What makes me a poet?
Is it that I write with intent,
or that you read what I write with intent?

What if there is no intent, just words;
meaningless, seemingly nonsensical and superfluous verbiage,
and you manage to decipher a meaning from it?

Further, is it poetry if I did not mean for meaning,
or if I simply meant to take away the means
by which a reader such as yourself would interpret any meaning?

Do my emotions have any weight, any substance at all;
so that in weaving the thread of stanza, rhyme, and meter,
they provide the dye of comprehension?

How do I know that if I scream anger on paper
sadness will not effuse from your eyes?

How do I know that if I laugh at the page with mirth,
or press it to my heart with grief,
any blood or tears of mine are of any worth,
other than your own personal belief?

I can't assure a single thing, can I?
You love to keep me guessing, don't you?

The joke's on you this time, I'm afraid.
Keep me guessing and struggling to assure myself that I am a poet,
because as long as I'm doing that;
  
I am.