Five years old
I could not speak
My tongue, glued to
the roof of my mouth
And my cupid's bow lips
quivering with unfounded fear
A feeling that I could not
connect – could not fit
the mold that had already
set.

I moved through the years
A sprite of quiet pretenses
Both shielding myself and
unknown to myself
A feeling that I was
Too real, too present
outside of myself

Even when the years wore on
This selfsame sensation
transported itself too
What I wanted to say
and what I said were divided
I tremble and I stutter and I
still can't fit the mold.
Only a liquid cure can ever
ease the pangs, but I won't rely
on that.

Instead, I tell myself
It's better this way.
I am an enigma to be discovered
If you will only try.
Slowly, I think I am knowing myself.
A quiet exterior but inwardly
A loud booming that will sound forever.

In youth
It came as a flood
Almost senseless with
the rush of expression
Pouring from my hand;
It could not keep pace with
the ceaseless deluge from my mind
Half-formed coherency
No thought paid to the rules of
Grammar, Spelling, Paragraphs
Just a wrenching of the soul
that demanded ink.

Years later, studies of
Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson
A mind full of words that
are not my own, I am
Senseless with the inability
to break this learned dam. Now
nothing comes out right.
My mind, it burns
and burns and burns
But nothing ever takes aflame.