Silence and Noise
I used to think that silence was
when we first touched
and my fingers skimmed your back
as gently as snowfall
and you told me
that it felt
like you had
grown wings
most mornings i woke for you
and i wish i wouldn’t have kept quiet about
the graceful way your arms were placed
and the complex pattern the rumpled sheets left
on your face when you turned over to kiss me
good morning
I used to think that noise was
when we ran home in the downpour
squealing like children
and you dropped the groceries
down the stairwell
cans crashing onto concrete
thudthudthud of grapefruits and oranges
and you drove me to the wall
and stole my lips
like you were starving
noise was fighting just to make up
and dragging our problems around the room
like empty cans tied to a bumper
silence was you
perched like stone
on your windowsill
when you spoke your poetry
in solemn glowing tones
and in the air around you
dust circled and danced
like tiny pirouetting stars
and the light from the hollow moon
made you into a ghost
silence was the cone that surrounded us
whenever we’d talk
how I was drunk on
the lines in your face
etched in by hundreds of thousands
of open-mouthed smiles
I used to believe that noise was
when together
we laid in your empty room
and filled it with my closed-eyed uhs
and your open-eyed mmms
and we were drowning
and we never
came up for air
but noise is the thunder
of keeping thoughts inside
i had love for you hidden in places
where i couldn’t even retrieve it
tucked deep into the hollows of my bones
and in the spaces between my eyelashes
silence was the way you could glance at me
in a room full of people
and make them all disappear
it was how you ignored the extra weight I carried
here
and here
and loved me
it was the space between passion and absence
the way neither of us could say anything
because the air between us
was so filled with hope
and noise was the shattered space you left
the tremors of deceit
the tentative scratching at windows
and the desperate pounding on doors
but we didn’t have anything
between the silence and the noise
no plateau, no solid ground,
no polished stone
no patch of grass
to land on
and then you were gone
and I remembered
what silence was
when we first touched
and my fingers skimmed your back
as gently as snowfall
and you told me
that it felt
like you had
grown wings
most mornings i woke for you
and i wish i wouldn’t have kept quiet about
the graceful way your arms were placed
and the complex pattern the rumpled sheets left
on your face when you turned over to kiss me
good morning
I used to think that noise was
when we ran home in the downpour
squealing like children
and you dropped the groceries
down the stairwell
cans crashing onto concrete
thudthudthud of grapefruits and oranges
and you drove me to the wall
and stole my lips
like you were starving
noise was fighting just to make up
and dragging our problems around the room
like empty cans tied to a bumper
silence was you
perched like stone
on your windowsill
when you spoke your poetry
in solemn glowing tones
and in the air around you
dust circled and danced
like tiny pirouetting stars
and the light from the hollow moon
made you into a ghost
silence was the cone that surrounded us
whenever we’d talk
how I was drunk on
the lines in your face
etched in by hundreds of thousands
of open-mouthed smiles
I used to believe that noise was
when together
we laid in your empty room
and filled it with my closed-eyed uhs
and your open-eyed mmms
and we were drowning
and we never
came up for air
but noise is the thunder
of keeping thoughts inside
i had love for you hidden in places
where i couldn’t even retrieve it
tucked deep into the hollows of my bones
and in the spaces between my eyelashes
silence was the way you could glance at me
in a room full of people
and make them all disappear
it was how you ignored the extra weight I carried
here
and here
and loved me
it was the space between passion and absence
the way neither of us could say anything
because the air between us
was so filled with hope
and noise was the shattered space you left
the tremors of deceit
the tentative scratching at windows
and the desperate pounding on doors
but we didn’t have anything
between the silence and the noise
no plateau, no solid ground,
no polished stone
no patch of grass
to land on
and then you were gone
and I remembered
what silence was
