Please consider us poets.
What a novel conceit
driven by our desire
to occasionally eat
of the fruit of validation
the wine of faint praise,
and the ephemeral haunt
of one worshipping gaze.

Tell me that I matter.
Pay attention to me.
Just see what I’ve done
and in it see me.
For on just such a thread
my esteem dangles dear.
In hopes that dense strangers
will treat it with care.

We seem willing to throw
our words worth to the winds.
On just the sad hope
that we might be let in.
And if we are
what can we hope to find.
But inevitable proof
we’ve lost more than our mind.

© Copyright 2018 Robert C. Leung