I have been silent.
I have been silent not for loss
Or mourning
For those drag words from me
With or without my consent.
I have been silent because I am trying to be
Gentle
In love
When I am a thunderstorm made flesh,
A hurricane,
A seismic wave of passion and pain.
Inside
I burn
And it has been a long time
Since I have loved so deeply
As to press my sizzling hands to my own stomach
Just to keep another person from burning their fingers on the love I hold beneath my skin.
I have been silent
But I have not been extinguished-
Far from it, I have risen.
I have gone blue and white with heat.
I have wandered through the blackened trees in the ghostly calm of the night
And kindled them to flames with my palms.
I have left embers
Shifting and sighing in my footprints
And the earth has learned a new name to score into its stone and treebark when I travel through the darkness
Searching for a rest I will not find.
And there is joy in this,
There is such joy!
Although the heat presses,
Although the light licks at my ankles when I wade too far into my own heart's dreams.
I leave joy in these silent places, black and velvety and slumbering in the night-
I wake them
I wake them because I have been woken
And my heart has become something that melts
Something that burns
Something that hungers and consumes
And glows with shimmering reds and golds no matter how tightly I curl around it and hush its hissing whispers.
I leave joy because I can't contain it
And it reaches roots into the ground with every step I take-
A fearful joy,
A joy that knows its hunger
Will be its starvation.
A joy that breathes light and grasps at shadows
Because that is all it knows how to do.
A joy that turns its face up to the rain
To feel a moment's peace and cooling clarity.

Oh, I may have been silent
But I have not been quiet.

I could stand at the top of the world
Looking down across the lights spread out like twinkling spiderwebs on the ground
Little galaxies full of life,
I could stand in the dark and see them all
And it would still be your light I craved.
It would be your gravity that pulled me.
Of every light like a glittering jewel on the backs of these black velvet waves
It would be you. Just you.
I search without knowing why
Without knowing how.
I search even when I know
You are not there.
I search until I find you, however long it ever takes
And when I do I can't stop looking at your face
As if to glance away would be to lose you all over again,
When really you are just like all the others, wheeling in this sea of nighttime shadows and starlight-
When really you have no notion to be treasured or missed
Or longed for.
And yet I can't help it, I can't stop it-
I look for you.
I look to you.
Just you.

We talk,
We know.
We kiss,
We love.

(Complications)

She walks away,
I fall apart.
I get together,
She starts to doubt.

She falls apart,
I'm far away.
She brings me closer,
I start to doubt.

We talk,
We don't know.
We kiss,
Maybe we're wrong.

(Simplifications)

She starts to cry,
I calm her down.
Love is here,
Why can't we see?

Blindness is gone,
I kiss her eyes.
She hugs me tight,
I can see her insides.

We talk,
Now we know.
We feel,
We can't be wrong.

(Solidification)

Touching
Feeling
Kissing
Feelings

So much happiness
So much love
Happy tears
And now the void.

We don't talk,
We know.
We don't know what we know.
What's going on?

(Fear gently approaches)

I start to doubt,
She's far away.
Bodies so close,
Never enough.

Beating hearts,
Holding hands,
Syncing sighs,
Silence awaits.

We don't talk.
Are we done?
We're so close,
Love can't be gone.

(Emptiness)

I start to cry,
She hugs me tight.
What does it mean?
There's no reply.

We're blind again.
What happens now?
If this isn't the end,
Where has it gone?