i'll tell you later...

bare paper eyed me, naked
and shaking, still

much less uneasy than i,

bringing to me with it’s blank stare
a suffocating desire to drown it, too,
in my despair, stain it with my soot-black
alphabet soup till it was dripping in misery,

bringing to me the faint question,

what have i
but words

to fill this page
these pages?

and so many times i have asked it
but only now,
in the doorframe
of an unwritten library
under black bird over
head
i ask,

what to lend
when those words
want to come to life,

and
are but one, or two, maybe three, rarely four –
whatever amount i manage
before something in my throat
splinters and snaps like a block
of wood my father would strike
to feed to billowing bonfires.

for
all i have,

is but a
quiet

that halts my talking,
demands me not to speak
when i am stuck and stuttering
and where Silence drags it’s feet
shoelaces clicking in leftright rhythm
students speaking dictionaries turn in circles
like they
are strangers,
two separate species
quite unable to relate.

and Silence he pleads (silently)
well I can barely speak

why will nobody else come up
and instead please speak to me?

(Silence he is sad and lonely)

but i, quietly
empathetic

and overly observant

decipher the isolation on his face
and from my shady doorframe step out
and stretch my arm, i utter

“Silence i am alice i am incredibly glad to meet—“

and Silence stops me enthusiastically saying
we’re the same you and i, barely able to speak!
hardly able to mutter a pathetic,
silenced squeak!
(laughing hysterically)

“Silence why so cruel this is only empathy…”

no sympathy for the Weak alidear
hell, even evolution kills them off eventually...

and i took two steps back
under that doorway in a dark haze

in a soft daze realizing my quiet could not help Silence
though only silent me could really understand Quiet he.

but i guessed
our wordlessness would only sit
in stale stillness, hushed, and Silence
only wanted help from noisy Speakers
who would never hear him.

so i left silence brooding by himself
and stepped into a ring of linguists
with a smile.

and i stood there till one turned to me
and screamed
“would you like to stay awhile
and discuss with us phonetics? ”

and for a moment i stuttered, but stopped myself
and merely smirked and nodded.