i thought
i lost my voice
it just turned out
i didn’t have
anything worthy
of being heard

it isn’t until
the words stop
and the world
keeps on wobbling
when you get the
true sense of worth

maybe it’s forgotten
a poet spends
twice as long watching
as they do spilling
their guts out onto
the cracked sidewalk

the volume turns up
on the words ignored
turns of phrase
so easily given yet
left smoldering in
the ashes of hope

scribbling odes to
an indifferent universe
giving away every piece
until the hidden scene
is of vistas crumbling
in a loneliness of one