Perhaps Gandhi? Maybe Plato?

Possibly a Quaker founder?

I do not know who originated

the saying, “Speak only

if you can improve the

silence.”

But I know someone special

who embodies this expression.

My loved one’s furrowed brow

and outstretched hands speak

volumes amid her

silence.

Her empathy is a language

that manifests on her body

and needs no interpreter.

“I want to help you, but how?”

she tells me in her fervent

silence.

I wish I could reply to her

but I do not know the answer

much less the vocabulary

to approximate her fluency.

So I shrug and keep my

silence.

Just so ya know.

I was an abused child.

Let me clarify...

I was raised in the south during wich time if you were bad,you got whippings in school, you got whippings at home and you went to church at least three times a week if not more!

We drank straight out of the waterhose an lived to tell about it.

If a relative died, usually you inherrited somethin to remember them by, or many things. Weather you wanted to or not.

Our kinfolks saved everything to re-use later because the already lived through the great war then the deppression then the second world war and they werent gonna go without again! So we grew up learnin how to "hoard" stuff so we wouldnt be without it later. Ya know, just in case another war or deppression broke out.

I learned how to ride a bicycle on crushed oyster shells because thats what they used as gravel. Lets just say you learned how to ride a bicycle and not fall on those sharp shells real fast.

We cut our grass with a reel mower and rested in the shade of a Mimosa tree drinkin lemonaid.

I guess gettin spankins, gettin yelled at, growin up savin everything was child abuse.

I didnt think it was, but i was told a lil bit ago that because i did some of those things while he was young that he was abused. And now he has trauma. And that i had just continued the cycle of abuse.

Well sir, i really didnt know that was abuse since i grew up that way and didnt seem nothin wrong with me. I suppose everything i tried to do right was abuse.

When i was young the grass was green

The sky was blue,

Girls liked pink, Boys liked blue

Boys were gross untill aged twelve,

But then maybe they still smelled.

We all stayed out 'till the sun went down and Jack fell down and broke his crown.

We all got whoopins and went to bed,

Woke up next mornin foggy in the head.

Folks yellin at each other throwin

Dishes breakin things

We hid under tables, ran out to the swings.

Didnt have airconditioning,

Hot summers there.

Heat made tempers worse i swear!

Playin pattycake runnin through the mill

If Jack cant catch me nothin will!

Screen door slammin runnin through the house

Dont let her catch me be quiet as a mouse!

Shhhh...

I don't want to be here

Yes that top looks bad

Can I please go home?

I don't care about the dream you had

Your kids are not special

They have no talent at all

I'm tired or pleasantries

I'd rather just look at the wall

I just want to be alone

So please, please be quiet

Humanity in its true form

Is an uncanny, insufferable riot

And what do you think?

I know you've never heard me

Too busy with your musings

Of how nothing is truly free

No one contributes anymore

Instead we only complain

Our projected woes

Falling steady like the rain

What if no one cares?

I can't say that I do

Humanity is incapable of change

The statement bitter but true

So please take your shoes

And your stupid mason jars

Get out of my house, get out of my sight

Go tell it to the stars

It's time to meet his parents

His mother is fake nice

She mispronounces my name

Massacres it with a hatchet smile

Repeatedly

He warned me

She may be like this

Seeing how I am not

One of her hand-picked selections

I lack the proper breeding and poise

Like a fucking show animal

So I warmly smile back at her

Amused with the knowledge

Her favorite son

Loves my name

In fact

In just a few short hours

I will have him whimpering it

Yes it's your fault, you knew what they were like from the beginning. You threw yourself into the abyss of love for someone who'd watch you fall. You tossed away everything of value in your life to make space for them. You rearranged your plans and sacrificed your future for someone unwilling to make the slightest change for you. You claimed love was enough but in the end it wasn't. We warned you that this would happen. That one day it would be over and you'd be left holding the pieces, staring ahead at what your life could have been. Now the day has come and we can't even say a word to you because it could send you over the edge. So I say it here to the blank page "I told you so".