In the Silence of the Night

Come to me in the silence of night

So that you may know the truth of my Self.

In the cacophony that is daylight’s routine I can surreptitiously place a mask over what’s inside.

During school:

Student’s screeching voices disguising teacher’s monotonous tones

In moldy antiseptic classrooms with yellowed whitewashed walls.

After school:

My brother’s blaring trumpet as he attempts musicality in the expansive empty living room,

Trying and failing to change the volume of the notes as he goes.

Before dinner:

My father’s clanging pan as he prepares whatever meat is sizzling on the stove today—

Beef, pork, chicken, complete with enough peppers to burn down a forest.

After dinner:

My mother’s constant babble to no one in particular about her job,

Sitting at the giant wooden dining room table we found at a yard sale.

But when my family is asleep,

There is quiet

Everywhere

Except in my head.

In the thick silence of night you may know my true Self.

The pressure builds in my head like I am

A plump red grape in your fist about to pop

Open to release the slippery slope within,

Staining all surrounding flesh with tainted thoughts.

In the roaring silence of night the voices inside

Grip the reins like I never let them during the day.

My thin silken mask strains and

Stretches and

Finally the seams I sew each morning

Give up the constant struggle of holding in

Lies of grandeur and success

And give in to the truths of an insanity rooted and running

So deep I can’t distinguish where it ends.

Where my own thoughts begin.

The old ideas of my Christian mother stretch

Claws warped with time towards me;

Their seductive voice rapes my mind with

The all too familiar guilt of what he did to me,

What I did not do to save myself.

The old criticisms of my alcoholic father wrap

Ropes tied to failures around my ankles.

Their rasping voice reminds me of

Every intellectual shortcoming,

Every physical flaw,

Every hurt in my past that endeavors to drown me.

The disease,

My constant companion,

Locks its chains around my fractured mind.

Its paralyzing voice forces me to stay silent.

I watch everything I worked for fall apart while

It tempts me to the blissfully thoughtless enslavement it promises.

In the silence of night my true Self lies in this cushioned bed,

This lonely, unreachable abyss,

Adding artistic strokes of pain

To the already decorated skin of my hips.

In the silence of night you may see my ugliness.

In the silence of night you may see my truth.