Voices are magical.

Inflection, like infection, coats your core to warp even the simplest word and make it powerful. Some people are so incredible at it; given a gift of speech, that acts as a leash, holding you close and safe.

Accents and drawls. Lifts, slurs, and the occasional mispronunciation can make your heart sigh. Happy just to listen.

Then, there are people like myself. No beautiful tenor or foreign tone. I don't speak loudly, and get lost in the crowd. And that's okay.

I have words of a different way.

Writing.

Don't call on me to be your public speaker, but I'll gladly write your acceptance speech. I'll be completely content in watching you read it aloud, from a distance. And I'll smile. Because for me, the important part is that those words I loved into existence and onto the page, got a chance to live through YOUR splendid delivery.

My writing voice is silent. But in its silence, hopefully, resides a feeling. Any feeling. Just so long as it makes you feel. 

Depending on the place, time, or mood,

The writers voices are always good.

Each one fits the writing as if it's a ghost

Writing me.

I am simply the utensil it chooses to be.

Sometimes I'm a poe black share cropper off the ol'

missipp.

A few times I've heard Robin Williams walk in the door. All his humor and energy! I'm exhausted when he leaves the floor!

Once in a while, I don't remember when, but there a short gay southern man his voice was the editor in the movie "The Help" the town editor.

When I write about strength, I get the voice of

Dixie Carter from "Designing Women"

If ever there were a strong southern woman, she to me anyway, was it!

I have a friend in India that I speak to every day, sometimes my writing will have his voice, or my dear friend out in California I hear his voice when I write.

Mostly though it's just my little girl voice along with all the rocks and a few precious marbles I have left.

So that is it that is all and you thought you were odd.

What is a writer's voice?

Is it the way speak or the way we write?

The inflection we use,

The grammar we choose,

Whether we write at day or at night,

Is our writer's voice something in which we have a choice?

The sky is dark; there are shadows on the ground,

The sky is black like ink; lights cast shadows on the the pavement below,

Neither sentence is better than the other,

But one might highlight a point where the other might smother,

Both are something I would use to show;

That by one voice only I would not wish to be bound.

Darkness and pain,

Blood dripping to the floor,

A tidal wave of sadness flows through me,

Looking to the future and all I can see,

Is another closed door,

Blackness on my soul, and ugly stain.

A gentle caress,

A shiver of lust,

One look at you, my heart skips a beat,

One look from you, you knock me off my feet,

Lightness of touching, trying not to combust,

A question posed, the only answer; yes.

Both writes are wholly and completely me,

And there are many more in between,

Not only poetry but story and song,

For a writer's voice there can be no right or wrong.

Different styles of writing published since before I was a teen,

My writers voice changes like the colours on a tree.

My voice barely seems my own

Sometimes the words a mystery

Perhaps something speaking through me

They surprise me at times

Write things I would never say out loud

Is the written me the real me?

Will I ever really know?

Am I more open through veiled phrases?

Often moved by pictures

Inspiration needs a source

A voice needs a rhythm

Finds movement among the silence

Perhaps these things matter not

Just fragments stored in webs

Unless they speak to you as well?

What voice do you hear?

My words

Are a song

That haunt

My dreams

And caress my

Curves as I

Walk through

My day.

They are tattoos

On my skin

That fade

As I write

Them down

And lovers

That leave

When we don't

Need each other

Anymore.

They are a

Sword in my

Hand and a

Bow on my

Back.

Clay in my

Hands.

Inspiration in

My eyes.

They are my

Innermost

Being.

They are

The essence

Of

Who

I

Am.

You'll hear a laugh

A distant insane laugh that will make shivers run down your spine.

You'll see a man, not too young nor too old.

Sitting on the table with a broken cup of tea.

A pen in one hand and few leaves in the other.

Writing down things that were never written before.

He yearns to escape out of the dreaded cage of my mind.

But the reality of the world has him shackled and bound.

That doesn't stop him from talking more.

I'll say what he wants and do what he wills.

He is a fan of E.A Poe.

Living with his dark enigmatic quotes.

No one knows him, no ones sees him.

Until I pick my own pen.

And write.

As I write I speak

Not aloud,

But to the pages

I caress them with sweet words

I harass them with violent thoughts

The words

In my head,

Don't speak

They scream

Never silent

Never stopping

Must write, must write

They repeat over

and over again

"Not now"

I say

Eventually they fade

Lying still

Just waiting until

A song that flows 

through watery groves.

The lyrics unclear,

Yet so good to hear.

A rebel that breaks

through ruler's mistakes.

The actions scary,

A burden he carries.

A chaos that spreads

through bodies of dead.

The confusion settles,

In blood-stained rose petals.

I don't know what it wants for me,

To do, to write, to make, or to see.

But one thing's for sure, and it's that,

I don't care if you like it or not.

Though it'd be nice if you like it too,

But a writer should be judged by his stories,

Like a singer should be judged by her songs,

And I should be judged by my humanity.

As I write, I seep into different identities

with the ease of an actor trying on costumes.

Unwillingly, I touch my fingers to my lips

though I've never smoked;

this sparks my transformation

into beautiful women drowning in fabric,

or southern farmers with sun-ironed faces,

pale roman scholars penning logical treatises, 

but I am never me.

I am everyone else,

but never me.

I cannot keep a diary.

Humble and oriented by muses

found in shelters of nature and emptyness

fitting words into concaves

trying to intersect the line of what

has lived within me

outside

at my side

In thoughts

in ancient trains that followed rails or trails and stepped into fails and raise

silent dreams

noisy voices

cricket songs

bouncing balls

and overtones.

A voice will just step in where silence or noise are manifest

like insects

or like plants that shelter insects

or plains that shelter plants

and mushrooms

and empty rooms making the perfect space for wall paintings

or future ancient writings

trying to comprehend why humans are here

trying to hear aliens with tinfoil on their heads

or painting beads on strange clothes

that keep us warm in cold

when we are trying to decipher

the strange words put together

in ancient writings.

Maybe its life itself calling names on brains

or nature's nurture principle calling words for all of us who felt lost

or fell

or fail in feeling okay

or felt okay by caressing the wild scum shelter beneath the old carpet in front of the painted walls in an empty room.

Maybe I'm not comfortable in wide blank spaces

we need shadows where there is excess of light

so letters aranged

filling spaces

as water fills empty vases

or oolong tea fills empty cups.

Maybe there's a humble voice trying to fit the words as pertinent as they come in misguided thoughts, revealing darkness

making light with shades.

Maybe there was a broken mill somewhere and an accident led to civilization

and civilization led to bigger accidents

with just a purpose

naming accidents

calling names and perpetrators

computers that will find all the nation's traitors

or just the menu of a chinese restaurant that filled a space between empty walls

and served spicy kung pao for the hungry.

But that's me, again, trying to name the chaos within or without

or anything around

with the purpose

of making someone

someday

the founder of something

worth to fill the space

between those big

and humble

and senseless

unexistent empty walls.