Denied

I wanted to be there, to participate

in the ritual I had been taught,

the sharing of stories

of the life lost, the community sympathy,

I wanted to tell everyone

what a gift you were to me,

how you helped me carry my load,

offering love, compassion, sisterhood,

and a listening ear, but no one

cared to look at my loss.

My heart wasn’t seen

as important enough

to be there. It hurts me to this day,

this rejection of my human rights

because of others who don’t want

my voice to be heard. So I didn’t get to

tell them about our late night

conversations, our laughter,

how it snowed on Christmas Eve,

telling me it would be your

last Christmas. The snow lady

I built with your granddaughter, or

the camellia petals that were her lips,

her pansy eyes.

I will scream through this silence

until I vanquish it from my soul.

I don’t mind the quiet, but silence

is not quiet; it’s deafening,

a cacophony of absence that drowns

my thoughts away from me,

digs its nasty talons straight through

my chest into my heart, shredding it

in its search to find and kill

the best of me and the best

of my memories of you, of us.

This filthy scavenger puts its beak

right in my ear

and squawks until I think

I may go mad from the harsh,

shrill lies it feeds me.

Please

give me some relief, call the beast

back to its lair before

it eats me alive.