I Am the Silence

I spend too much time locked inside my mind.

After hours spent in self-reflection,

One would think that I would be bound to find

Who I am and know it to perfection.

Yet I lay awake asking what life means.

Still I have, through years of introspection,

Failed to get to the bottom of things

And lost years to hours of self-dissection.

I have seen myself in too-short tempers,

In these subtextual accusations,

In their wounded and suffering whimpers,

And some less-than-polite implications.

I hate to see the face in the mirror

For who she has turned into in terror.

I escape myself whenever I search -

Barely a glance before it goes away

In the rearview mirror of my own hearse

Before forgetting who I am today.

An idea stays behind, this is true;

As does smoke drifting through open fingers.

A trace remains when next the sky is blue,

Though ‘twas never truly there, it lingers.

It would be easier to catch shadows.

This never-ending search for the unknown,

It leads me toward my handmade gallows

For daring to see my mind overthrown.

I could never find myself when I’d look.

Who’d think distraction would be what it took?

The quiet come-down after a party

Marked by heavy limbs and a lighter soul,

Laughter that feels it’ll never leave me,

Bone-deep exhaustion that makes me feel whole.

The waiting time before an appointment

Be it for a doctor, friend, or lover -

Still and silent, finding some contentment

Existing before the moment’s over.

Though it is a phrase so very worn,

Perhaps it’s worn because it resonates.

I find I am the calm before the storm,

The moment before the bomb detonates.

I am the thunder, I am the lightning,

A deadly force of will barely contained.

I am more than all of this suffering,

More than the laughter and the good days.

I am more than all your discovering,

More than the potential of my sun’s rays.

I am what you find in the in-between.

I am paradox, the never-again.

I am the almost, the what-could-have-been.

I am what begins when your small world ends.

I am my pride and your humility.

I am my own, at the end of your rope,

Your strength and your vulnerability.

I am your downfall and your greatest hope.

I am the success that comes at a price.

More than all of this, I am the silence.

I am what is left when you choose to leave.

I am after and before words that sting.

I have always been and will always be.

I am both everything and nothing.

I am an individual, the whole.

I am who you love and that which you hate.

I am lies, am hated, am heart, am soul,

Am a severed head on a golden plate.

I am the breath you take when all is lost.

I am the waiting, and I am defeat.

I am victory no matter the cost.

I am lying dead, rotting at your feet.

I find myself to be ever-changing

In a world that would soon see me hanging.