secondhand

choking on the rhetoric of everything i’ve heard,
trying not to sound like the ghostwriter
of words the world has already felt.

it’s hard to believe anything belongs to me
when every emotion has been named before,
and everything created evokes my sob,
because it’s so pure it doesn’t just move me
it cleanses me,
gentle, loving hands
secondhand from the store

and i hate that i didn’t write it.
that i didn’t think of that exact comfort first.
that someone else found the exact words
that bleeds out of my breath.

i wish i could’ve written the relief myself
not for credit, possibly for praise,
completely to know i’m capable of making something
that would hold me.
i wish i could weave my own linen sheets.

Author's Note

Pardon the nonsense.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

This is far from nonsense and really hits home to me. My class and I discuss an essay called "INtellectual Property" and we discuss this very subject. About what is ours, and how often what we make up is from what we have read or heard, and how much of what we create is really our own ideas.
This is something to ponder...we find new ways to use words but then wonder if it is really new and really our invention.
This piece is a perfect one for writers...we can all reflect in this.
j.