earth's lament

1. hurt

silence

            should not be able to be as oppressive as water, as to feel like drowning in deep ocean

      where no one cares enough to jump in after you. 

it should not push so hard that

       your skin is raw and cracked and burns

should not course like poison through your veins

             set on driving you halfway between it all

to be strung beneath 

puppet strings in unseen hands

should not have power over your body in the way it does– 

2. anger

 –because you feel as though your hands should be shaking with some kind of rage 

         like your heart should be coursing with the power that comes with the supposed fight against injustice 

                         something that comes with bloodlust and adrenaline and the will to win a battle no matter what it takes. 

is it wrong that your hands refuse to curl into fists?

wrong that you cannot find the urge to hurt someone

the way you are?

instead the silence seems to have carved you out inside and all that’s left is the steady, slow beat of your heart 

deep breath

in

(the earth shakes)

out

(the earth sighs)

bleak like a barren wasteland.

3. grief  

you finally realize what the silence was, and what it took from you. 

voicelessness, it seems, fits the frame; louder than the largest crowds because the lack of noise is so striking that once you have realized what is missing, you cannot ignore it. 

in this situation you have been 

worn through years upon years, cut and stabbed and molded and then 

                                                                                                              left to die

              and the lack of voices was so oppressive and strangely wrong because you could not help but hope that

someone would shout, would rush to your aid-

but nothing came, 

and though your heart still beats and your breath still blows softly, you mourn a time when you did not need them to love you to be happy/when you were as all things should be/before they stole your soul-vitality and turned it too utterly mortal. 

4. rise

you are an ultimatum. 

they have left you without a choice. (they have left you with next to nothing, really.)

it isn’t even a decision. you could not prevent it if you tried.

as long as their silence holds, as long as they continue to claim power over something that is        

           not theirs (over you), 

your emptiness, your off-balanceness, your grief, 

                                                                             will manifest; slowly, at first, but inevitably-    

             with tears that will fill your gleaming eyes until they are too full and 

pour again and again 

until the world is drowned in your sadness, with torn muscle and broken bone that 
                                               shake the ground beneath their feet, freeze them with ice-cold skin and rupture in heat and fire and burn them alive in hurt, until 

         they have lost everything they thought (and that did) 

make them who they were. just like you, just as you are. unforgiving, unbiased.

(still, this is not revenge. there is no anger. they are young. foolish. caught up in individuality. you cannot blame them, not really. you almost pity them, but this is merely balance. karma. a lesson in how all things should be, one long overdue, one that they would be even more foolish not to listen to.) 

because you know, eventually, if they do not recede, you will forever cease 

to live/thrive/exist, at least not for many, 

                                         many years. they 

will go too, eventually, without you- they take you for granted, of 

course, find the little part of untouched skin to enjoy/destroy and ignore the screaming welts and bruised veins. 

and so, time moves; they/we must act, or—

or not.

and

 it will all start anew, without 

you/me/them 

(us), reduced to nothing 

but memories whispered in passing 

by the winds’ gentle voice.