Sound Cycle

Sound Cycle

Silence:
Pouring over me like molasses,
Thick and dark.
Clotting in my throat.
Blinding eyes and sealing lips.
Devouring me.
Filling up all the spaces,
All those places I should be.
Ramparts and buttresses of exclusion,
An impassible moat.

Noise:
Struggling and screaming,
Light, sound, movement,
Din and bedlam, caterwauling mewling detonation.
Hear me! Oh, listen to how I can yell!
Voices with legs that can run for miles.
Pushing, ever-shoving,
Striving beyond reality,
For something to stand on,
A tenuous bridge over the hush.
Deafening blast that only destroys.

Murmur:
All apologies and no forgiveness.
I break because, I sorrow because.
Crawling after the wreckage my words have wrought.
Empty hopeful promises,
A dream of my better behavior.
Worn down upon the ragged grindstone,
Of useless language and unbridled shame.
Bitterness of lost opportunities,
Squandered in past cacophony.
Acceptance of distance.

Silence:
Of a more companionable nature.
Fury spent and sheepish,
Past the cataract of words,
Those syllable traps.
Stillness tinged with the same old unease,
For all the bang and bluster nothing is different,
Everything hangs in the quiet spaces between us.
The void of waiting for words.