The Language of Silence: When Words Are Left Unspoken

There is always a song

of the absences in the air,

meaningless words disappear

before they are even spoken,

echoes vanish

before they find resting space.

The silence consoles;

it is not beautiful

but does speak profoundly.

It's hard to whisper

in a barren voice

through and through,

instinctively filling gaps

that should be absolved

in silence.

And I've learned

Maybe not words of end,---

that to be at rest with separation

was the saving grace of

conversation kind,

backward glimpses

where love held no right

no more than the hold

or reaching out of a palm.

The faint breathings meld with the silence; words are attempted

but their discontent spoils the soul of the slow languidness;

in truth, their eyes burrow for words

whose touch evokes unsung laughter,

only now my imperfections fall

like its rain-the weeping;

This silence-

does not calm,

does not sing,

does not admit.

It breathes.

Enveloped by cold wool

Of what was not said,

Its silence hangs in the air,

And stitched throughout the guilt

In all sewn stitches,

Shadows of declarations slowly sinking.

I undo the silence

Untie its constrictions

But it remains like a cobweb:

Strung tight through the memory

and knotted into the pain

of awareness that there are

stories never to be told.

So I will sit

Between silences still fell

And the grave talk of closed lips,

And to understand that ultimately

silence is not privacy but full—

overwhelming

with everything,

speech failed to maintain.