Between silence and words

I sit with a blank page
like it’s waiting for someone else,
someone who knows
how to begin.

I don’t.

I stare at it.
My thoughts feel unfinished,
like sentences that got
lost in translation.

I start a line
then erase it in my head
before it even exists.

What if it sounds wrong?
What if it means nothing?
What if I try and it shows?

The page stares back at me.
It doesn’t answer,
it just stays.
open.
patient.
a little intimidating.

So I write one word.
It looks small.
insignificant.
like it doesn’t belong here.

I almost take it back.

But before I do,
another comes.
A little unsure,
a little quieter,
as if its questioning
its own place there.

Maybe beginnings are
supposed to feel like this,
uncertain, shaky,
honest in a way that
feels a little too vulnerable.

I thought poems needed confidence,
but maybe all they need is
someone willing to stay
through the uncomfortable silence
before the beginning.

Someone willing
to be bad at first,
to not know,
but to write anyway.

And maybe life too is
a blank page that
doesn’t expect perfection,
only presence.

A series of first words
we’re afraid to write,
until we do.

So I keep going.

Not because I understand,
but because
I’ve started.