This silence

This silence broke you years ago
when you were seized by a fit of
wanting needing so violent
you dug your way out through your skin
to escape the everpause between
asking and never receiving.

You bled yourself in payment
for what did not, would not come.
You did not think to ask
for a receipt.

Maybe this silence was always
deaf to you too.

The world is altogether kinder
if nothing exists that can hear
some of us but not others.

There are those who swear
they hear and are heard.
White moths flutter
from the shadowed temples
of their palms.
These are the souls who believe
all that flutters gets home safe.

You are the only one who can hear
the four-letter words of fire and bile
wrestling in your belly.

You know better than to plead
with what can’t hear you.
Some things are not for you.
Your palms will stay
empty of moths.

You are nothing much to everyone
in particular.
You are no one’s one.
You are especially nothing to a few.
You were everything to two, once.

Imagine someone calling
from another room, where
it’s too quiet without you.

You go to bed alone.
Shush the old prayers
as they whimper
then settle in the dark.