Free Verse Poem
It’s a strange thing—
this ache in my chest
when I scroll past a singer crying on live
and the comments say
“she’s being dramatic,”
“she fell off,”
“next.”
We don’t see people anymore.
Only pixels.
Only performance.
We forget the girl with the mic
has calluses on her fingers,
a mother she’s trying to make proud,
rent due in four days,
and a voice cracking
from too many nights singing
to people who only listen when she breaks.
We fall in love with the idea of someone—
the highlight reel,
the eyeliner,
the curated grief—
not the human who double-texts her ex
at 2AM,
or eats dinner in bed
with the lights off
because she can’t stand her reflection.
And I’m no different.
I measure my worth in followers and likes—
as if visibility equals value,
as if I don’t exist
unless I’m seen.
I scroll past poets with three likes
and feel their ache in my bones,
because I am them.
I rip myself apart
over commas,
over the weight of a single word,
wondering if I’ll ever be
enough.
If maybe one day,
I’ll matter when I’m dead
like all the great poets
with dust on their names
and fame carved from silence.
Or maybe I’ll be forgotten—
lost in the algorithm,
buried beneath sponsored posts
and half-read captions.
But that’s what we do, isn’t it?
Worship talent until it asks to be held.
Put poets on pedestals
then scroll past their cries.
Call them “genius”
only after they’ve stopped breathing.
And that’s when sonder settles in—
not as a thought,
but as a weight.
The quiet grief of knowing
everyone you pass
has lived a life as loud as yours,
full of need,
and beauty,
and ruin.
We’re all just ants
building little kingdoms out of pain,
posting proof of our worth,
measuring our existence
by who’s watching.
We ache out loud
just to be real somewhere—
to anyone.
And maybe being seen
was the closest thing
we ever had to being saved.
The Altar 