Inadequacy.

I will never write the way I hear you write.

I don't know if it's your voice

or your words

but there's something different

about the way you kidnap letters

and force them into submission.

Almost makes me wish you'd do the same to me.

But it doesn't matter

because you don't know I exist.

I'm not in your world,

where words and mistakes

remake again

and again

and

again.

I hear you read your poetry and I freeze inside.

I can't write that way, and I know it.

I sit down and try to compose,

but all that drips out of my fingertips

are pale imitations

trying to be you because that's the only way I can get close enough

to feel like you know me.

The inflections in your voice, and the way you don't look up

not always

and not often--

How hidden you are even when you're most brazen

picking up admiration like you're picking pockets.

There I go again.

Using your voice, your metaphors, your similes

and smiles

in my writing because I can't do it alone.

There was this other writer who knew I couldn't do this alone.

He told me it was okay--

that all the best steal from their betters, until they steal from themselves.

I stared by stealing from myself.

Now I'm at the low end of the ladder,

taking the picked-through scraps off the

compost

from the garbage

from the dog bowl

from the poor man's meal

from the servant's part

from the manservant's portion

of the master's leavings

off the master's plate

from the master's meal

at the master's table

in the master's hall

of the master's palace

on the master's land.

I'm not the master.

I'm battling with rats

over syllables that don't go together,

a jumbled mess.

Try sounding out

oo-ah-ee-mn.

It doesn't mean anything.

I'm beginning to learn

neither does what I steal.

Don't take me to task for calling myself out.

This is no case of

an author's her own worst critic.

No.

See, I'm my own best fan.

I think I make the sun rise in the morning,

and bring out the moonlight in the evenings.

I think the moon fades because too much exposure

makes her jealous.

But she keeps coming back for more because I'm so addictive.

I'm all the types of illegal street drug that won't kill you,

just maim your brain cells until you forget why you're taking me

in the first place.

But after spending an hour listening to your voice

and your way with words

I'm regretting ever putting pen to paper.

I'd give up the craft entirely if I didn't need it for my sanity.

And even that's wavering, I think.

Maybe if your creations can keep me sane

I'll forgo the paper, and the creativity

and sink to my knees to worship your artistry

because you've trapped me inside your majesty

and I don't want to be anything but freed.