a poem without words

There’s a block in my ribcage

So this pen

with all of its ink

Can’t speak

And I use those empty lines like a coping mechanism saying

If nothing comes out

means nothings coming in

This is why this poem isnt simply an absence of words

It’s the slight memory of a once advised breathing method I promptly forgot at the end of 45 minutes of me needing someone to listen to me scream and being told to clench and breathe

It’s me rocking at the edge of my bed like my grandma used to do for me when I couldn’t communicate

I still can’t communicate

It’s my head hurting because I haven’t had water in no one knows how long, and I can’t force myself to care enough to get up

Moneys also tight

So it’s, “can’t afford anything besides the sink,” but “the water from the sink scares me now.”

It’s knowing no matter what I write, or how many drops hit the pillow,

This poem isn’t just an absence of words

It’s all of them standing back and looking at one another seeing who could possibly

Be poetically written to describe how this poem isn’t an absence of words,

But the culmination of the pain blocked in my ribcage