Finding Poetry’s Voice

I used to think poems lived in leather-bound books, guarded by professors with stern looks, that words worth speaking needed permission, academic citations, scholarly submission. I sat in corners swallowing syllables, choking on metaphors I couldn't pronounce, wondering why my tongue tied itself in knots while others spoke verses smooth as river stones. The first time I wrote something real, my hands shook like autumn leaves. I called it a draft, a sketch, a maybe-someday thing— anything but a poem, because poems were precious things and who was I to claim that word? Three crumpled notebooks later, I stood at an open mic, palms sweating, heart drumming rhythms louder than my voice could ever be. The room was half-empty, the lights too bright, my paper creased from being folded, unfolded, refolded again. And I spoke. The silence after I finished was the first punctuation mark I truly understood. See, finding your voice isn't about sounding good. It's about sounding like you. It's the moment you stop apologizing for your own echo, stop trying to fit your breath into someone else's lungs. I still don't know if what I do is poetry. Some days I think it's just survival with better line breaks, confession without the curtain, the things I couldn't say finding their way out anyway. But I know this: When I speak now, I recognize the sound. When I write, the words fit my mouth like they've been waiting there all along. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's everything. Maybe poetry isn't something you find. Maybe poetry is what finds you when you finally stop running from your own voice.