“Writing is a struggle against silence.”



– Carlos Fuentes

I keep words – the things I'd love to
see and do –
like hostages without ransom.
Tree-climbers scale my esophagus,
trying to escape my motionless tongue.
Machu Picchu grows, fertile,
deep in my abdomen.
Mountains rise to greet the gods;
The flowers grow vibrant pink to
please them.

I have these words, but can't share them.
My lips silently dance to their rhythm,
and it's sensual in the way only
Forbidden things are.
I write because it's the only way I can hope
to be understood.

And sometimes,
I feel like a cranium shouldn't have
to be a jail cell –
When too much bounces around in my head
and I can't write fast enough.
When I loose the words –
grasp tightly at uninspired atmosphere –
That's the worst.
It hurts like plucking
rocks from the flesh covering your kneecaps,
like losing a bit of yourself in the process.
And I wonder if it's that way for you, too.
Because you write about communication –
about the struggle for sound –
and you make me feel like you understand.

The way you can write that story arc
Being dressed in depression like a too-heavy coat.
You wrote it right and true.

And I know.
And it's okay to say it because
it's past and that makes it fact,
not emotion.

And yet it was somehow hard to read,
like recognizing it on paper makes
truth out of memory.
So I should be thankful for my silence
because my explanation of
Understanding and Empathy
would have been like the uncoordinated girl's
first step onto the dance floor.

•
•
•


I was young,
Somewhat like the country,
whose voice had just started to crack
and who had not true sands of time.
Even as they fell from layered steel and glass.

And I'm still young, I guess.
But now I've seen death,
And I held it, if only by the foot,
when it arrived slowly
and flittered away in fast-forward.
And I've seen people wanting
death so much
that they call to it
With locked doors and poison.
But I've never missed its
arrival and ascent,
only to be left wishing I'd had a chance
to say good-bye.

But I can tell that you have,
even in my own ignorance.
The way you write
makes me feel like I've been there,
And it's a miracle of infinite sorrow.

But really,
how am I suppose to explain that?
I'll write it because that's the only way
I can hope
to be understood.