I’m whispering away the silence
While my mind is still, my heart is violent.
Turning in over itself. Begging for freedom over all that is left.
But these whisperings remain untouched
Little much that whispering does.
In all the screaming cries of this world,
Our quiet whisperings are ignored.
I need to think and I need to breathe.
I think I’m breathing, so it seems.
Please release me now from this binding reality
I’d rather fall than falter one more day
I’d rather die alone than be forced to stay
Beside all that you are.
The gears that click slowly into place
Are lost in our graceless world.
A tasteless void fills me now.
A life’s objections surrounds me, but how
Else can I break this silence?
They trample over all that I am
Nothing more than a useless, empty vessel trying to stand.
My heart will bleed onto this page.
After all, the wrists remember better days.
I know I mention whispering, but words are all that I am.
A quiet puff of air, and whispers blow away like sand.
And so while they are free, we remain ensnared
All because we tried to care.
It’s some sort of irony… it has to be, right?
The way we lose ourselves in this struggle.
“I want to be good.”
And so I let life just live.
But even a little space
Is more than this world gives.
Our refusal to conform begins to transform
Into a terrible hate for the terror.
Our love for light is lost in the night
Because we refused to compromise with violence.
And so, once again, we are left with the silence.
This silence is not the absence of voices
More likely the culmination of all our well-intentioned choices.
When you keep your heart open
The world has its way.
Little by little, all the hurt numbs the pain.
Step by step, we don’t care if they fall.
If I pause to think… do we still care at all?.
You’re right, you know. The young are different.
We adapt very quickly, so we’ll no longer be the recipient
Of all the chaos of your world.
We’re tired of the lull after every unanswered word.
We’re tired of the quiet, all the lives on auto-pilot.
We’re tired of bad endings, therefore it’s time that we begin
To be what we need, to accomplish what we want.
Please forgive us; our love is lost in violence,
But it’s time these voices spoke and shattered all the silence.
S. F. Austin High School
10