Out Loud

i can write it all down. every syllable, i never got to say. on paper, i’m fluent, maybe even eloquent. but in the room, my tongue turns against me. my throat locks like a vault. i’ve rehearsed it all before. in margins, in drafts, in dead message boxes i watch my voice rot behind my teeth, while everyone else converses. what good is articulation if it only echoes inside my own skull? what good is writing if no one reads it? they say speak your mind, but never hand me the microphone. so i pass poems like folded notes, hoping maybe just once someone will open one.