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.