Silence.
How peaceful
How innocent
Unsullied
Like velvet
Like a kiss.

*******.

Silence made pregnant
By the words biting at my lips
Bursting to escape my mouth
Barely contained by my clenched teeth.

Silence, while my mind screams
Deafening
Drowning out all other thought.

I am locked in a burning room.
No escape.
Were it physical, this fire would
Envelop me
Consume me
Destroy me.
Leaving only dust.

But instead it just keeps burning
Boiling away coherent thought
Leaving me raw
But whole.
On the outside.
Unscathed to the eyes of others.

Like a fist,
Strong.
Aggressive.
Defiant.
But filled with broken glass
Bleeding even as in desperation
It squeezes ever tighter.

What if I were to let go,
The shattered shards dropping
From my hand?
Like the flicking of a switch
The fire goes out.
Ice taking its place
Or perhaps not even that.
What if nothing took its place?
Emptiness. Blackness.
A vacuum.
An absence of feeling.

How would that be any better?
Such a counterproductive act of self-defence.

Unless it were out of my control?
Suppose I just wake up one day
A shadow
A shell?
A black hole contained within a person.
My capacity to feel
Nullified.
Emotions broken from overuse?

No.
I’d rather burn.
I’d rather bleed.
Than become numb:

Silence on the outside
Matched by silence on the inside.

7/1/12
© Bonnie C. Aspinwall 2012