The Silence in a Snare

Graphic by Kit P

 

I want to act like I’m not affected but I am

 

I am affected not by the horrendous shouts of hell

but of the wonderful future within arm’s reach

Of the rainbow skies I can see from across my house,

rudely taken away like a chair kicked underneath me

 

In these moments of insanity, I revert to numbness

To the small hours when I was a child,

a blubbering infant, back in the arms of grey

my fists balled in erratic confusion,

and my eyes seeking and seeking but never finding

 

Never finding truth in my life here

Always having to be content with the hush that washes over a sea of pauses,

then of the eventual hesitancy before I say what I truly want to say

 

My escape is in my mind,

in the smiling faces across television screens that I cannot recreate

I imagine their feelings as mine:

Eyes shut, face tilted upwards to the sky as tears run down as if savoring rain from a drought

the prolonged gasp of a “hallelujah”

the turn, the deep gazes as they face the ones they love

Then…then…

Then me.

Back in my room

 

I sit silently

and watch happiness happen 14436 kilometers away