When Your Words Feel Worthless

you know what they say: comparison is the thief of voices
there was a time i listened to poems
without hearing them loom above my own

let verses soak into my bones
make their home in me—welcome mat out
and all the poetry echoing in the halls

i said i’ve got room for you
and sheltered every word in my chest
grew beds for anything beautiful

and it’s not as if anyone ever said
their beauty was a threat to mine
but when you grow up with trophies for eyes

car ride conversations about sky-reaching
and star-becoming and your neck gets sore
from all that staring up

maybe you begin to count the miles
to the atmosphere and fear
how far away it all seems

for four years i let the planets—i mean
poets—take up all the space
in me they needed

that was
until

i too decided to poke the Milky Way
with a pen. then, my competition-trained
brain started fearing the night—
not the darkness—but all the little lights
i had not yet become.
how could i forget i already

contained galaxies? sheltered multitudes?
how could i forget that this is not
a competition? it is a concert

ringing into the quietest night.
this poem is uncoiling the hunger for perfection
i think i need. this poem knows the sky

is never too full for another try
of mine. this poem does not use beginner
as an excuse.

this poem
just
begins.