We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

I can't sleep
With you on my mind
But I'm glad you are
Because I need you to get me through the night

But it hurts only being able to think of you
Because I know that if I want to see you
We both have to lie and sneak around
Just to say hi

The times we're together
It always ends up being a bit of a fright
Because she tells me to leave you alone
But I know I won't and that's alright

I hope that you stick around
Because I will too, but just to the side

Through the stuggles I'll be waiting in the moonlight
Waiting For you to arrive with a smile that just shines

You make everyday a great one
And that's not a lie
But I'll be waiting for the day
you can sleep with me in my bed at night

Look at you.
So forced, so empty.
Look at you.
You keep snarling, "Why you? Why didn't he love me?"

Look at you.
Viciously pulling at marionette strings
That were cut so long ago with so many other things.
Look at you.
Stabbing picture frames.
Look at you.
Cursing my ****** name.

Look at me.
Eyes burning black as tar.
Look at me.
More deadly and more beautiful than a dying star.

Look at me.
Writing word after word, as though words could change anything.
As though I could ever change anything.
Look at me.
Covered in blood, covered in ash.
Look at me.
And you thought you could hurt me with some broken glass.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.