Hear Me

The words catch in my throat, stuck

by their jagged corners and crooked meanings,

jumbled out of order on the journey to my tongue.

You wait with a wavering patience that I watch

dissipating like steam rising from the hot surface

of your indignation while my quiet settles in

our cracks, weighty and thick and impossible.

Later, on another day with a different theme,

you’ll ask me for evidence, for details, for memories

that will slither away, elusive as the answers sitting

sharp in my throat that burn with the familiar toxicity

of fear and rage and sadness that has me paralyzed.

The words aren’t foreign, so perhaps it’s that I worry

the arrangement won’t be pleasing to your ears,

or maybe it’s that I’m a statue that’s been standing

here for years while moss grows at my feet and

birds flit down to perch on my rounded shoulders.

My mouth was bronzed shut long ago on another

day with a different theme and the same silence.

It’s only a matter of time before the smoldering

in my belly ignites and begins to melt my

alloy exterior from the inside, little by little,

until my fingers flex and my soles relax and

my lips begin to part just enough to spit

the trapped copper sentences at your feet,

whether they’re nonsensical to you or not, and

those barbed words will pin you in place,

their significance fusing into twining vines that

wrap around your ankles, climb up your legs,

spreading quickly and without prejudice until

they’ve reached deep into your ears so that you

can’t hear the triumph of my boots as I walk away.