it wasn’t silence exactly,
his “I don’t know’s”,
nor were they words of optimism,
promises of intent, of partnership
they pressed against me like lead,
those words of indifference,
a mirror reflecting myself back to me,
the voice in my head louder than the silence in the room
silence is the absence of sound,
but it’s never quiet; it’s always loud
for, in the silence, all is heard,
no stone is ever left unturned
and all paths lead to where you’ve erred;
in the silence, the soul is bared
-inspired by Man is Man, by Emerson C. Burkhart
the words blurred into one another,
every yellowed page like the one before,
every phrase becoming more foreign,
each syllable more severe
so, I walked away;
I sank into the wordless sea,
sight distorted,
down to where the light
was but a glimmer up above,
where the cold encased me,
welcoming,
a soothing balm against the burning
of the sun
I sank into the wordless sea,
breathless,
enamored by the consuming silence,
by the thrum of my own heart,
a metronome for the endless swaying
I sank into the wordless sea,
but I was not drowning
I heard the sound of my own voice
-artwork via Pinterest, by Jael Segura; written in response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie First Line Friday, where the first line is provided, and you must devise the rest
it closes in on you, the silence,
the pressure of it robbing all the oxygen,
absence coaxing a primal voice to arise that is something no one can imagine until it’s heard
twisting and splintering as it rises,
it’s wicked tongue lies to you,
convincing you, corrupting things,
loading itself with shrapnel from dark crevices and welding it all together into sharp ammunition
it fires and fires, stealing from you,
leaving you without a single word of comfort
only smoke, wafting in its wake
-image via Pinterest
try as we might to hold it all in,
even silence has a thunderous din
-image via GIPHY
she was born into chaos,
a warzone where every man
was for himself,
and every woman chased
after the men with the guns,
fear and confusion
knotted and tangled
into her veins
words were
wicked shrapnel,
but lack of words
was the deadly gunfire
Heart Breathings 