Poetry

I started writing poetry as a fourteen year old in foster care. Over the years poetry has been a life line. I share my words here on the blog for anyone who loves metaphors as much as I do. Search the poetry tag to see poems from over the years. 

Unspoken

When Rumi said, “there is a voice that doesn’t use words,”

I do not think he meant me-

sentence hung in mid air,

participles swinging;

stammer split into two halves,

a pair of ellipses.

Lips injected with filler words-

it is not pretty.

My voice is a snake with two tongues.

One runs free; skirt hitched up in Times New Roman,

unscrubbed ink on right-hand fingers,

the backlit keys of my computer,

the days I dance

and hear the earth beneath me.

The other tongue is silent.

When Rumi said, “Listen,”

I do not think he meant me.

I listen like a morse code machine

that can only read dots.

I listen like a morse code machine

that can only read dots

but tries it’s best anyway,

like there is a message from the front line

I will never hear fully,

like our lives and fight depend on it,

like words are my best friends dead before they reach me.

I listen,

and I do not hear.

I listen,

and the lost words become stars in a night sky

that will never guide me home.

I listen,

and I do not understand

but I learn how to navigate anyway.

Once, Rumi told me to listen to a voice that doesn’t use words,

and he might have meant me;

might have meant everyone I’ve met with silence.

Once, my baby sister burst into tears when I walked away

and I knew she loved me.

Once, my grandmother reached for my hand

when she didn’t know my name.

Once, I saw my mum in the intensive care unit,

her lips blue as the balloon above her bed,

monitors screaming in dashes and dots,

the whole world crumpled like a paper napkin around her.

And she waved,

and neither of us said a word.