The Strangeness of Our Worth

You can’t ever decide what you mean
To each other—equal, more equal
Than others, gleefully inequal—

You’re so much alike one another,
But because your worth is entirely
Settled by comparing each other,

You’re restless and anxious all your lives,
Even when sleek and well-fed, healthy
Beasts, all basic needs met. Even then,

You all suffer for comparison,
You must suffer in comparison
And still suffer more comparisons.

And that’s at best. Most live worse than that,
While it’s us, you use us to compare
And contrast in nine decades or less,

To measure your worth in restlessness.
This leaves us with little doubt about
The strangeness of our own worth as words

With notions attached, we, the measures
Of your relentless self-assessments
And contests to assess each other.

We are worth, worth itself, word for it,
Idea of it, description of it.
Without us, you’d have no worth or worse.