As much as I is

I could make a cathedral out of sentences,
teach the silence between my words to sing,
let every syllable fall like heaven,
let every metaphor grow wings.

I could write a poem worthy of a Nobel,
carve golden verses into the skin of time,
make the world weep at the beauty of my language,
make the stars believe that they were mine.

I could give a thousand names to longing,
describe the ocean without touching the sea,
I could write a thousand versions of a person,
each one more beautiful than me.

And still,
somewhere beneath the ink,
beneath the eloquence,
beneath the carefully constructed art,
there is a place I cannot reach
with anything I write.

For I can describe the fire
without ever knowing how it feels to burn.
I can write about becoming
without knowing where to turn.
I can build a thousand mirrors
and admire the things they show,
but no matter how precisely I describe myself,
I am not the self I know.

I can write I am,
in every language ever spoken,
I can make those words immortal,
make them sacred, make them golden,
but a sentence is not a soul,
and knowing words is not being whole.

I can write all I want.
I can make the ordinary divine,
turn the ache inside my chest
into something so sublime
that even I might be convinced
I’ve finally found the truth.
But the words will always be the words,
and I will still be searching
for the person they allude to.

Because I can write about the world,
I can write about the sea,
I can write about the person
I have spent my life trying to be.

But I cannot write myself into existence.
I cannot verse myself free.

And perhaps that is the cruelest art of all,
to possess the words for everything,
yet have no words that make you you.

To be the author of a thousand lives,
yet never quite inhabit your own.
To make a home of every sentence,
yet remain, within yourself,
unknown.

I can write a masterpiece.
I can make the language bend.
I can give the world a thousand truths
and make each one transcend.

But I will never be the poem.
Never the beauty I describe.
Never the sum of all my words,
nor the person they keep alive.

For I am not as much as I write.
I am not as much as I say.
I am not the magnificent thing
my words make me appear to be.

And I can write, and write, and write,

but I will never be
as much as I is.