You know the feeling of having a word on the tip of your tongue?

You can't quite place it, but it lingers and haunts you for days on end.

When I met you, that feeling went away.

Your name was the word I'd been searching for I didn't know I needed.

Every morning and every evening, your name became my daily prayer.

With one encounter all the words fell into place and my purpose on this planet seemed destined for your embrace.

In the Silence, there was only Cowardice. My own. Bared like a tribal death mask. It is to be sure not the romantic soul that one would hope to uncover behind the clawed vitalistic marks-- but instead the calloused workaholic who casually admits that the Heart has many loves within the Universe, and just one Master: the Work, Itself. Indeed it seems almost criminal. And that is where my tongue has faltered. Upon this desktop alter, I want to say how much I admire the private initiative... The self-sacrifice of the performance Artist, the fight of the Entrepreneurial Spirit! If this speaks to you-- please be humble, and gentle with those unalike. Yes, you are among the proud few. Many would stand as firm if they could, and then won't, for arbitrary reasons. I know because that is me. Ninety-nine percent in, and unwilling to commit to taking that self-lit path to wherever it leads. It is a fundamental lack of Faith (in self, in the greater Good, and in the Almighty). It is my Silent shameful grief, the grasping at the Emptiness, that is Me. True, in this wilderness where I am adrift I am seeking a bond of the like minded, and better yet of those who are striving to advance beyond this dissonance. And I'd like to believe that there is a friendly soul or two here who understands me beyond the confines of the sketchy script. That's it. I have said too much out of hand. I return to blank inward Silence, with its soul splicing Loudness.

Silence challenge @Midnightstars

Will the bruises go away when the pain decides to stop?

Will the rhythm come back in the center of my heart.

Will it be called love when you raise your hand to swing?

Will it be a song that I've heard of a gospel hymn that they sing?

Abuse is not an excuse for trying to take control.

Abuse is a trapped monster in the middle of their soul.

A monster that never had a chance to come to terms.

A monster that expresses weakness as it learns.

I watched my friends die.

I watched them as they ate less, as they let words into their heads and hate into their minds.

I watched them cry and shake with fear as they read the headlines.

"They killed a boy on the street."

"A boy that looked like me."

A boy that was Black.

A boy that was told he was free.

"They're telling everybody that I'm delusional, that I'm a disease, something bad."

"Our former president said we should be banned."

A girl with big, trembling hands.

A girl who was trans.

I watched them as they flinched, those hands covering their ears as the door to the classroom bangs against the lock. I watched them try to breathe, try to feel.

"It's okay, it's just a drill, it's not real."

"They made it legal to carry a gun without a safety class."

"God, this day might be my last."

"63 shootings in 29 days, it's happening so fast."

I watched you promise me life. I watched you promise me liberty. I watched you promise me the pursuit of happiness, press, religion, petition-

I'm just 16. I'm just a kid.

I know nothing about politics.

But you broke all those promises.

And all I can be is silent.

What I'm wishing to tell you,

What I ache to describe

When each moment grows silent...

The world cunningly still

Behind our pleasant curtains, for the moment,

Folded out of our grasp...

...Is that you are as sweet,

As sweet as the strawberry/bananna flavored

Servings you feed our boy

To eat...

You are as kind

As any woman I have ever had the grace

To know and find...

You are as beautiful

As the beginning of spring,

The birth of flowers and

The best summer days when we are lost

In revelry and praise,

Not knowing where to start our journey;

Because there are so many roads

Of sustenance, and good taste

That this pleasure seeker would gladly take

Within the nature of your face

And soul...

My love, you improve my mirror,

And you nourish me whole!...

I love you so much,

And you are the life's goal...

When each moment grows quiet,

I try not to bite down

On the root my tongue;

Though too often

Not found,

When I'm wishing to share

All my blessings that you

Self create

Just with care.

And with all that you do...

3/7/23

Bunny Villaire

Life is good

the internal

Disquietude

testament to

spiritual muscle

& creative fortitude

we are living in

in abundance

in soliloquies

in the auditorium

of closed eye

Revelry. . .

Reverie. . .

Reveling. . .

intrinsically

where thoughts

are Springing in

in purest silent

unadulterating

Imagery. . .

03.12.2023

Silence challenge @MidnightStars

We laugh, and go quiet.

I want to tell you all of the things I've been holding back.

Like how he hurt me

and enjoyed it.

He told me it was normal, the things he did to me.

It's not,

and when I finally realized it,

it had gone too far for it not to affect me.

So now every time you lean in close,

I see him.

I don't want to,

and I adjust-tell myself you're not him.

But it hurts that he's the first thing that comes to mind

when you're my everything.

And I want to tell you

about the friend that I lost.

Clearly, you already know I lost someone.

But I never told you the details-

the reasons I feel guilty,

the circumstances.

The one who messed with me-

trying to make the trauma I experienced

nothing but a sick joke.

And I want to tell you how that same guy-

the one who joked in the time of my deepest pain-

told me he wanted me to be his forever.

His little pet of a housewife-

no working, no supporting myself-

just making babies and waiting on him.

As if I'd ever settle for that life.

And most of all,

I want to tell you about the boy who had my heart

for seven months.

The one who got me to say I love you

less than two months in.

The only one I've ever claimed to feel that deeply about.

I want to tell you all this and more,

but I stay silent.

And I wait for you to say something,

as I fall deeper into your big brown eyes.

Watching all my past lives flash before my own.

There are words on the tip of my tongue.

But to silence, I've clung.

There are words of happiness,

Words of grief and sorrow.

Words that I'll never be able to tell tomorrow

The world is changing and the future is coming near.

Closer and closer, I find something to fear.

I fear the world as it crumbles beneath our feet.

The news brings the anguish of the street.

I fear to never be complete.

Words have failed me again.

When I can't say what I feel to family or a friend.

I fear my end when there is nothing more to the world I can send.

But until the future will commence,

I will hang onto my safe silence.

It started out like a fairytale. She was showered with gifts and poems and false hope. He came onto her strong, he came onto her fast. The word Love was spoken early on. I’m not sure when it became so horrible.“If you don’t stop crying by the time we get there, I’m slitting my wrist.” He threatens her. And these kind of words weren‘t unusual, but yet they stung differently this time. She wanted to cry louder, she wanted to scream out to the world she was a ghost to, she wanted to yell “Get me out of this Hell!” She wanted to yell, “Stop doing this to me!” She wanted to fall to her knees and let the tears escape her even faster, even harder. But she blinked her eyes and stopped the tears. The silence was deafening. She became ice cold and numb to the temperature, numb to the feeling of anything at all. A slave to her own lover, she was. A slave to the person she thought would never hurt her. But his words cut so hard that she shut it all off. In this moment, she gave him power. She gave him evidence that she would do what he says, including telling her how to feel, she would do it. How do you write about something so big? How do you talk about something so big? When they look at us, at the restaurant, they cheers our love. They buy us shots at the bar and tell me I’m so lucky to be young and in love. And it is perfect… for him, because he got his way. But Love isn‘t threatened. Love isn’t, if I don’t get what I want, I’m taking away someone you care about. Love isn’t, ”If you ever leave me, I’m killing myself.” Her stomach sank when he spoke these words. Her stomach sank when he did cut his wrist, when he told her it’s because he loved her. Her stomach dropped to the floor when he told her, “You make me do this.” This is what happens when she doesn’t listen. This is what happens when she tries to run. When she tries to run far away, just like her own therapist said. And so she listens. When he tells her to be happy, and here are some drugs, she takes the drugs and is happy. When he tells her to stop being so mopey, she takes another bump and smiles. He can take her job, he can take her car, he can cut her off from everyone in her family. But will she let him take her own soul? Her own dignity? Will she let him have it all, all of her, and more? What will it take for her to listen to herself, listen to that voice in her head that’s saying “Get out!” “Escape!” Her life isn’t so dreamy anymore, her life is Hell and her life is reality.

It's quiet now.

Way too quiet.

This's not right,

Something's lacking.

Walking into

every room of the house

now makes me feel like

I'm sinking

into deeper and deeper

thoughts of despair.

The quiet silence,

I once

longed for is now

fully available

But when my

family isn't here,

in times like these

when I feel lonely...

alone, too

I dearly miss them.

It then reaches

my understanding

the phrase

"No man is an

island."

So now I begin to

grasp the fact that

I need them.