Poetry

Just Listen

It is the silence, the static
Nature of your mouth, that is
Most deafening.

Just Listen –

That’s what you’d said to me,
And I’d heard

The scream of the tree, whose
Life was cut short, and the wail
As roots cracked through soil
Like ribs through flesh.

The groan of the heart, which
Tired of supporting the
Lost boy as he injected his
Smack, just so he could find
His way back to Neverland.

Yet loudest of all was what we had lost,
And though I tried to choke those three words
Which had once been so simple,
You couldn’t hear them over your own silence.

Charlotte Elmore