every time i am not quiet
it does not come naturally to me
like every time i have tried to retract as though
i am an ever clenching fist
i am pried open and studied like a common specimen
unique only in that i give way too easily
and emit a scream that sounds like a song
my melody is indecipherable
and the lyrics are as you like it
so my prongs attune to the pulse of your want
and i say the words that make you soft
it is only when i am silent
lips stuck like a leech to warm flesh
that i do not accept the saw that threatens
to cut me open like the log down the flume
when my words do not ebb and flow
like the river you often skip pebbles on
that i am withering, tinged with a browned hue
i am in need of your callused, leathered palms
to sprout me where the soil rakes fertile
far from where the ripples crash on
i am really contracted to the ground
where i can never confess a single violence
or reckon with my debts to the gardener
subject to a thousand portraits where
i can hardly recognize myself in the frame
and still i am aching to unfurl my leaves
yearning to photosynthesize the scraps of sunlight i receive
into fumes that i breathe hot and heavy
like the cloak of a cloudy summer heat heaving into my throat
and coaxing the words out of my lungs
Editor(s): Chelsea D., Alisha B., Blenda Y.
Photo Credits: Unsplash