It feels ridiculous declaring myself a poet. I’m living in a constant state of audition and submission — half in a world of observation and self-talk, half in a delusional reality where this somehow works out. The days of having a title are over. I’ve got nothing to offer at a dinner party except, “Metronome, my three-part poem about desire exhaling between my thighs, has been rejected.” But I don’t offer that up. I just say I’m still teaching yoga and trying to get published

I am a poet This is something I always knew about myself, but infrequently said out loud. I thought someone else had to grant me the title— an editor, a book deal, a stranger with authority, some imagined jury of literary adults who would someday tap me on the shoulder and deem me legitimate. For years, I kept writing in private like it was something I needed to hide or something I hadn’t earned yet. I treated poems like secrets instead of evidence. But lately, something shif