Silence's Wake

Sometimes silence is just right.

Like when you are in a house full of people

And all you want is to be left alone.

And sometimes it is deafening.

Tonight, it is the kind

That slices through muscle and fiber

And lodges itself deep within you—

The moment you realize what alone 

Really feels like—

When you thought the white noise was quiet—

Until someone turned the static off.

And you felt your loneliness reverberate

And echo in your chest. 

And the pain of silence slices through

The hope that maybe tonight,

In the stillness of our home,

You would look me in the eyes,

Absorb the pounding pain 

Emanating from my temples,

Hold my face between your fingers

And whisper, 

"I'm here.

I don't know how to fix the shards,

Put back the shattered pieces of what's broken…

I can't make it better,

But I'm here.”

Instead, I brushed my teeth in silence.

I washed my face in silence.

I took medicine and slipped into the sheets,

Empty, in silence.

You asked me, earlier, as we unpacked,

Why I hadn't talked to Bonnie about this.

About my broken...

And it made me sad to hear the silence

Broken by a question about what I hadn't done.

When up 'til now I was doing a really good job 

Of not doing things…

Until on Tuesday I did something.

And now the world is reeling

And I don't think you understand 

How topsy-turvy it all feels.

Or how I've suddenly become 15 again

And all I can manage to worry about…

Between meetings about spring outreach

And what I'm supposed to teach on next semester

(The Beatitudes)

And pretending in a house full of people 

That I'm not dying inside…

All I can manage to worry about right now

Is how much I'm disappointing everyone

Versus how much I want to do it again.

And how much I am letting people down,

Versus hiding more safety pins in my underwear.

Safety pins for crying out loud!

It's oxymoronic, really.

But the paradox is that I'm not crying out loud.

I'm sitting in my bedroom in silence

Praying, alone, for the child in me to find peace—

Feeling as if the reason you are sitting silent on the couch

Is because I've 

Overwhelmed you…

Disappointed you…

Scared you…

Let you down…

Why can't I talk to someone about it?

Because I'm too busy drowning to say anything.

Too busy choking on silence to whisper,

"I need you.”

Sometimes silence is peaceful.

Sometimes it is suffocating.

And sometimes, it just means 

That nobody gives enough of a damn 

To jump in the water with you

And dog paddle through hell or high water

Until dawn.

Because sometimes 

Hope whispers in on a sunrise,

If you manage not to sink in the night.

But sometimes, 

Hope is choked on salty oceans, self-imposed

And I'm afraid of the day that dawn won't come.

And I’ll be jetsam in the wake 

Of a waterlogged memory,

Washed up on heaven’s shore.