Hello ? hello ? hello ?
Anyone out there ? anyone out there ? thereās nobody out there.
This house doesnāt echo ācause itās empty ā
It echoes ācause I talk to the walls,
and they talk back
with everything my mother,
my father,
my brothers and sisters,
my friends,
and my lovers
never said.
You see, recently, Iāve been sleeping like Iām training for death,
my breathingās been shallow,
my dreams have been hollow,
waking up just to forget
why I even went to bed⦠in the first place.
The silence claps, filling the room, ā applause for my pain,
and I swear:
even my shadowās been walking away.
My bedās a grave I visit nightly,
only to wake up and
restitch my smile nice and tightly,
just so everyone can see
just how happy I can be.
The other day, I wrote a list of reasons to live ā
ran out of ink after two.
Wrote āsunsetsā and āmaybe,ā
then scratched 'em both through.
Every āI love youā Iāve heard
was a debt disguised,
a loan with interest
that never arrived.
For them, I know it was just empty breath:
no heart,
no soul,
no vow,
no truth.
Always less, and never more ā
just echoes behind this closed door.
As they left me alone,
blindly deciding
itād be okay for me to love myself
on my own.
They yelled out behind that door:
āMatt youāre not alone,ā
āWeāll always be here for you!ā
but no one ever knocked.
Only ghosts with names like Almost,
and clocks that tick and tock in Morse code
for stop.
Tick tick tickā
Tock.
And now even my watch
has begun to mock
the very bitternessā¦
that resides within these walls.
My chestās a locked box
where light doesnāt get.
My thoughts?
Wet matches.
That canāt sparkā
just create ash.
I choose not to water my plants
like Iām praying they die,
just so something else understands
what it feels like
to try
and try
and try
and stillā¦
not be remembered.
Iāve screamed into the universe
like voicemailā
begging for anyone or anything
to give me the recognition I needed.
No return.
I lit myself on fire for warmth,
and watched
the cold not burn.
This aināt poetry.
Itās my farewell in rehearsal,
a symphony of silence
in a one-man circle.
I donāt want to die.
I never wanted to,
and I never will.
But I canāt keep living like thisā
half death,
half plea.
So when you hear this:
Donāt cry.
Donāt clap.
Just breathe.
Because that breath
represents more love
than I ever believed
was for me.
I only ever needed three things:
I. love. you.
You could have saved me.
This is the poem I competed with at the National Speech and Debate tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, last week.