Twenty-One Years of Silence

A Poem

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

to confront you is
a double-edged sword
that slices through
the shoddy stitches
I re-do daily

silence had become
the ground of my existence

I never told you
even in a whisper
what the earthquakes
were like, well after
midnight

hands remained clasped
in prayer to an empty sky
that I could digest the words
but their gravity defies

no one came, or is coming
to help either of us now

I have run out of mercy.

I said the words.
I let them loose.

I have to heal,
somehow.