i have grown comfortable
with the silence in my mouth.
it has taken root in the gaps between
my teeth and in the pit below
my tongue,
has spread and settled and
grown.
my lips are used to the
nothing between them,
to the cavern inside
and the stillness.
silence has found a home
in me and i have let it be
mine.
i have seen a thousand times
the thousand words that
gather, leap, tremble
in my throat and below that,
the words coming from every
bone and every muscle,
the words i trap within.
i swallow them all, tear them apart
and they do not complain.
because they know
silence has found a home in me.
and they know how to rot and turn fickle
it's common knowledge, after all
and the words turn to dust in me,
to dust, to ash, to nothing
and my blood still
flows like the red tide.
because silence has found a home
in all
of me,
and i have made it mine.
