Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
(crappy title, I know, thank you)
I need you to know
why silence is a compensation
for lips standing guard, keeping safe
their secrets of an intimate conversation
where words were never enough
to stop I am saved from sounding like
I am afraid, I am afraid, I am
afraid; someday is now today, eventually
became this morning and I resent
every second of the past moreso than
the present; you are
so unbelievably far
from perfection, a hopeless dream
of a new beginning that leaves the sleeper
where she lay down; I hear you cry at the empty
pages of ocean waves and it breaks me,
the way the evening sun sets upon the day
like the closing of a book, far too intimate
to for me to read; they say that love
is more than just something you merely hear
when you try to listen closely, more
than a heart against your head against
my chest against your bed, laying
in the dark, breathing
and should you ask me my name
I will answer you indirectly; inquire about
my hands and why they fidget endlessly
because the more I speak the more real this becomes
and I’ve absolutely nothing to prove to you
despite this troublesome endeavor; I just can’t
keep ricocheting between extremes forever,
disregarding fear and walking quietly
down an abandoned street, or standing still
hearing rain as footsteps I will never meet
and wondering if I could believe in you
when you never believed in me—
and I’m sorry
I need you to know
why silence is a compensation for
how close I am despite how distant
I’m trying to be; I would go to such lengths
just to watch each of your imperfections collide
together perfectly, like that of the sun and
the waves of the crashing sea, strung along
in a never-ending story that begins
with one breath and continues with the next,
unyielding to such finality as the rain
against the pavement, my nervous hands
seeking refuge in my pockets or your head
against my chest in those quiet moments
just before we fall asleep;
they say that love
is more than climbing out
from where you’ve fallen, from escaping
that which swallows you whole or
holding your last breath when the waters
grow too deep; it will never fucking matter
how many times you lace your fingers
with mine to catch the tears as they fall
from my cheek; love, my dear, is silence
and silence is simply accepting that I
will never be something worth discovering, or
protecting, like a secret you
promise to always keep.
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140,075 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
<3
I'm going to go against the grain and say "hell yes" to the first two stanzas. They really make sense to me.
"my chest (COMMA) against your bed,"
"where words were never enough
to stop I am saved from sounding like
I am afraid, I am afraid, I am"
--Clean up your punctuation in the first two lines and it will yield clarity for the reader.
"and should you ask me my name"
I feel that the character is too well acquainted with their lover(?) to be talking of names.
" or
protecting, like a secret you
promise to always keep. "
I hate to say it but, this last line seems like a cop-out. I love this poem, it's the best poem I've read in a long time, but I neared the ending with bated breath, and while it wasn't bad, it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the poem. I totally get how hard it is to put a cap on the train-of-thought poems though.
Bravo. I'll be saving this one.
-Kat
I actually really like the title! I saw it and was like.. "ooh! I gotta read this." Personally for me I didn't understand the first two paragraphs.
This stanza is my favourite:
"I need you to know
why silence is a compensation for
how close I am despite how distant
I’m trying to be; I would go to such lengths
just to watch each of your imperfections collide
together perfectly, like that of the sun and
the waves of the crashing sea, strung along
in a never-ending story that begins
with one breath and continues with the next,
unyielding to such finality as the rain
against the pavement, my nervous hands
seeking refuge in my pockets or your head
against my chest in those quiet moments
just before we fall asleep;"
I think this is really pretty ^^
Good job on the poem
I have nothing helpful to say except:
1) I like the title, personally. Change it if you want, but that's what made me click.
2) This was my favorite part:
"I hear you cry at the empty
pages of ocean waves and it breaks me,
the way the evening sun sets upon the day
like the closing of a book,"
That's all. A bit of a failure as reviews go, as I really did INTEND to review this, but I have nothing helpful to say.
The last two stanzas here are my favorite. I find the first three a bit confusing, I think the whole poem could benefit from some better structure or punctuation or something to help the reader know how it is supposed to flow. I can see how some lines go together and flow well, but it is difficult, for me anyway, to know how to read this. It seems very heartfelt and has great ideas, emotions, metaphors and some imagery as well. I think with some fine tuning this will definitely be a gem. Thank you for sharing!!
-Laci <3