Some days there are echoes
Telling me to be quiet
Threatening anyone who could help me
Should I be foolish enough to ask
The nightmares lasted for years
Can you sleep with them dying
Night after night
No end
Gone are all you loved
Your fault always your fault
Selfish because you asked them
To rescue you
In the dream he always found you
Stopped you
They died but he left you alive
Always the one survivor
To face alone another day
Until you escaped
Outlived him
The world roils trying to expel those like him
A different world intolerant of wrongs done
To the innocent
Perform!
The world begs for a performance
Judges the performance performative
Punitively reprimanding
Demanding
Here I am quiet
Silent silence slinking slipping
Support in the dark
A touch here
A lift there
Carefully so as not to draw
The wrong sort of attention
Just in case
There’s an unseen danger
Can I sing of wrongs and rights
Can I tell a story of terror and light
How bad was it
Reflects off of the cavern of disbelief
Would I shake at night
Refuse to close my eyes in case my life
Was a dream
And if I awoke back then instead of now
And had to do it again
Over and over
Might I refuse to close my eyes
Stave off drowsiness and sleep
I can’t go back and live again
Can I
Could I
Survive it twice and three times or more
Every time my thoughts touch the memory
A little less pain
Can I speak then of yew berries and cedar chips
How the maple tree held me in its arms while I read
There among the branches invisible to all
If I am silent shout at me to speak
I will disappear as well
I have been a shadow for so long in hiding
That the light can hurt
Hot bright touch to the skin long shielded
I can disappear in plain sight
I can crawl away
Turn sideways and you will forget I was ever there
I take the stage and sing now
Will I trip on the way down or on the way up
Falling always to the ground
Ready to run
Skittish legs and darting eyes
Know all the exits and obstacles between me and them
Who hears me in the night screaming but gods and angels and goddesses
Who withheld and withheld and withheld
While I burned in hell glowing white hot with rage and sorrow and pain
I long for the warm fire of love
A touch of tenderness and vitality
An ember of hope
And a voice that does no harm
Either from silence or sound
I evaluate every note
Carefully
