The Stillness of Silence

For few days between the shaking and shattering of my consciousness, The soft arms of Silence Wrap around my aching torso And pretend to soothe the ever-rapid Battering of my heart. In those few days, Between the echoes of withering confidence and guilt, I am still. I am, still. And in this small room; Slithering and snickering like the Original Sin, Silence weaves a steady stream of affirmation through My Ribs And calls it Healing Though now, My choking lungs have no room to expand, And the heavy weight of lacking words Hold me down to the springs of my twin-sized mattress, Relieve me of my diaphragm, And excuse these tears as letting go. I am still now, and Silence’s Encouraging presence Claims my one good pillow, And wraps an unforgiving tail around the skin of my neck; Digging further into my trachea, Leaving me both without voice and breath. And I wonder, for a moment: If this limbo between body and mind This, an impossible lake teeming with jellyfish, Sting the spent soles of my feet, Binding me to a short, unmoving sentence; Will it also leave me to my unbecoming? Or God willing, Silence releases her seizure of Freedom’s porcelain throat Would she unburden me from the numbness of my own? Yet they stay still. They stay, still. For few days between the arms of Silence and her steady stream, I wake from the sheer emptiness of these walls And reflect upon this omniscient mirror placed neatly Between the cracks and crevices of my ceiling. Its divots and dips; I’ve memorized like Words slipped so vexingly into my ears—and, It is only when I break free from Her condescending arms, That the holy vibrancies and Thundering melodies of change Dance upon these empty walls and floor tiles, Push me out of my comatose state, And lift me from my grave. I balance myself between the shaking and shattering of glass, Seeking the arms of Silence and her comraderies, As they linger within the space between then and now. They are still, awaiting their seventh heaven And for a mere split second in time, I am not. I am tempestuous and acrimonious. Hungry for this squall of womanhood. The clothes of standing by and waiting no longer fit. The zipper has broken, and my thoughts spill out of Me Like water from a broken dam; Unstill, ripping currents of My Consciousness Shatter the one-way veil of glass between Myself And silence. And I face her like an old foe, pointing to her, My gun And resounding My Freedom from her arms.