Voices ~ reasons to bleed

the words that go unspoken

are the ones to fear the most.

I know this intimately

because they are all I hear.

the tears that fall in the darkness

the ones no one ever sees.

are the rivers that become a raging flood

the one that is drowning me.

the sheer terror that I cannot name

that I am numbing all over again.

is savagely clawing its way

up from where it lay.

it had all been silenced long ago

gone to a place I never knew.

and quietly I went about my day

no words on my tongue.

slowly I began to speak

in a whisper, voice so small.

and in the passing of days

that voice grew bold and loud.

it’s texture and tone have changed

and I’m not sure it sounds like me.

at least not the me, that I knew

I’m not sure who this is.

but I want to silence her again

she is becoming all that I am.

a raging voice, tormented

with far too much to say.

in anyone else this would startle

alarm me as a big red flag.

but in me this is the par for this course

up and then down again.

I work this circle like it has corners

places in which to pause.

rebuild, tear down, break apart

then put it all back together again.

still each time it feels different

and in that, this is just like the rest.

only the voices are louder, the pain more aching

the intensity,  more intense.

I know it doesn’t seem possible

to go any deeper than this.

but I took a respite with faces who knew me

and now I am back here again.

in this invisible world that I chose

this martyrdom of sorts.

paying a self-imposed penance

for always having been to blame.

splayed and exposed as always

just wishing to be seen.

yet making sure that I never am

gives me all of these reasons to bleed.