Two poets.

I want to know what it's like when it's two poets.

I was talking to a friend the other day, the kind of friend who makes you question whether your thoughts are even your own. It’s eerie, really, how he seems to know what I’m thinking before I do, how I’ll open my mouth to speak, and he’s already nodding like I’ve let him in.

I have. (How else would he know I have PCRC vinyl in the living room)

It should be unsettling, and maybe it is, but mostly, it’s just rare.

The kind of rare you don’t question.

I don’t remember how the conversation started, but at some point, I told him, "Hey, you know how mostly it’s just one person who’s the poet and the other is the poem? It’s always this way. One person writes, and the other is written about. One is ink, the other is paper. I want to know what it’s like when it’s two poets. What if we both were poems?"

A poem does not exist in isolation. It breathes, expands, and contracts. It takes on new meaning with every reader, every voice that carries it forward. When poets themselves become poems, they surrender to this endless unfolding, caught in a cycle of creation and reinterpretation. Perhaps one pens the beginning, and the other, unknowingly, writes the middle. Perhaps neither will ever find the end because the end is just another stanza waiting to be rearranged.

So it will never end? I was at the beach when I started talking about this again, what would it be like when it’s two poets?

A single line can mean one thing today and something else entirely tomorrow. A verse written in love might, years later, feel like hatred

And when poets themselves become poems, they lose the certainty of control. They are no longer just the ones choosing the words; they are the words, open to interpretation, shaped by time and perspective. One poet might start something, and another might unknowingly continue it, changing its course, adding new meaning, never quite knowing if they are writing the next chapter or rewriting the first.

Wouldn’t it be scary to be the poem for once?

And normally, somebody else wouldn’t get it. They’d smile, nod, and change the subject to something easier to carry. But my people do. My people see the weight of words before they’re spoken. I hope you get it too.

What would it be like to be the poem? To not be Shakespeare but Juliet? Both of them

Maybe they would try to outdo each other, seeing who could come up with the most ridiculous, most profound way to describe something as simple as making tea. Maybe they’d leave poetry on post-it notes, scattered across the apartment like breadcrumbs leading to some inevitable realization about love and existence. Maybe they would write each other into stories, turning ordinary moments into grand narratives, trying to make sense of each other through the language they understand best.

Or maybe it would be exhausting. Maybe they would overanalyze everything, trying to capture emotions with the right words instead of just feeling them. Maybe they would turn every conversation into a philosophical debate, dissecting the meaning of every sentence, every pause, until they forget what they were even talking about in the first place. Maybe they would struggle with knowing that poets write to understand, but poems simply exist. What if they couldn’t just be?

And yet, maybe being both the poet and the poem would be the ultimate freedom. Maybe it would mean knowing that you are not just the observer but also the observed. That you are not just the storyteller but also the story. Maybe it would mean understanding that they are both creator and creation and maybe, just maybe, that’s the closest thing to immortality we’ll ever get.

I remember telling a friend once. “I am always looked at, but never seen”.

And how do you explain something like that? How do you put into words the feeling of existing in a world that watches but never notices, that hears but never listens? I tried. I told her it was like being a storefront window that people pass by, glancing at the display but never stepping inside. Like being in a crowded room, surrounded by people, yet feeling like a ghost walking unseen among them. Like being a book on a shelf that everyone acknowledges exists but no one ever reads past the title.

It’s strange, isn’t it? The way we move through life, caught between visibility and invisibility, between wanting to be noticed and fearing what happens when we are. I think there’s a certain safety in being looked at but not seen. It means you can exist without expectation, that you don’t have to explain yourself, that you are free to be whoever people assume you are without the burden of proving them right or wrong. But it’s lonely too. Because being unseen means being unknown. And being unknown means you could disappear, and nothing would change.

"Maybe being seen isn’t about how people look at you. Maybe it’s about who you let see you."

She didn’t know how to respond to that, and maybe that was the point. Because the truth is, we spend so much time waiting for someone to see us, really see us, that we forget we have a choice in the matter. We forget that being seen isn’t just about being observed; it’s about being understood. And understanding requires vulnerability. It requires opening the door, stepping out of the window display, letting someone read beyond the first page.

And that’s terrifying. Because what if they don’t like the story? What if they misinterpret the words, skim through the pages without really reading them? What if they decide halfway through that they don’t want to know how it ends? What if they see you, really see you, and decide to look away?

But what if they don’t?

She didn’t understand.

She smiled, nodded, and changed the subject to something easier to carry.

If two poets are also both poems, then the story never really ends. It just keeps rewriting itself, over and over again.