Silences

A - Silent Nights

I lay in bed, looking at the ceiling. You’re lying next to me, half asleep. I’m crying – in silence. I open my mouth in vain: I cannot articulate any word. I want to tell you how confused and insecure I am.

You don’t notice the tears or the quiet struggle.

I insist on my useless attempts to speak - air is expelled from my mouth, but no sound is formed. I feel like there’s a rock on my chest – pushing me into the bed, making me short of breath and immobile. I can physically feel the rock – my chest hurts from its weight and pressure.

I stare at the ceiling, defeated. You’re still oblivious.

One night. Two nights. So many nights of this lonesome silent ballet.

I cry a little bit more in the dark, making sure I’ll not wake you from your drunken maze.

B - Silent eyes

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility; whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e. cummings