Oh, to be someone’s muse.

Once, just for once I wanted to be the poem, not the poet. There’s something wonderfully enchanting about being someone’s muse. To inspire a poem is to have your essence distilled into words that linger long after they’re read. Writing a poem about someone or something is one of the most beautiful ways to admire and celebrate it. Expressing yourself through art is, I believe, the ultimate expression of love and passion.

My notes app—that’s where my true life resides. It’s a collection of long love poems to suicide letters, reflections on the ones I love, capturing the way they look, walk, eat, and even predicting the inevitable moment they walk away from my life.

In my story, I’m always the writer, never the muse. I long to be someone’s muse, I long for someone who captures the silly details of me like I do, I long for someone to love me like I do. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always been drawn to the love poems and letters of Kafka and Gibran. I love to read the letters my father wrote to my mother, understanding why she treasures them so deeply even after 26 years. When you pour your heart out in words, it becomes a piece of your soul.

Once, I received a letter in a bar, asking me out on a date. I was too drunk to remember the guy’s face, but that letter—the first one I’d ever received—stayed with me. I still have it.

To be someone’s muse, to be the poem rather than the poet, It’s to have a piece of yourself immortalized in the art of another. It’s a dream I hold close, even as I continue to write my own story.