You Can't

You said.
You are so young
you cannot write the things you do
you cannot pretend to feel.

To which I replied,

If I were on a stage
you would clap your hands
for speaking as someone I have not met.

If I were a painter
they would call me great
for painting a face
I do not know.

If I, an old widow
cried to a song called heartbreak
sung by a virgin
who would question my tears?

If I write about an illness I have never had
and a sick man told me he loved my poems
I would thank him kindly
wish him well
and write another one.