Silence, words, silence.
A thought, a doubt, a requiem.
A daydream, a nightmare, the stories.
The void, the voices, the echo.
A whisper, a scream, a sigh.
The heart, the hurt, the hope.
A tear, a smile, a lie.
Love, violence, wealth.
The truth, the mask, the mirror.
The distance, the longing, the loss.
The question, the answer, the silence.
Between the
words—
you, the other, the gap.
I don’t remember when my mom
stopped feeding me, when she stopped
cleaning me. I vaguely remember
when my father stopped walking me to places,
when my parents stopped scolding me,
when they stopped teaching me maths,
physics, and geography.
I remember the faces that smiled
because I giggled, the hands
that clapped when I finished my food,
when I learned to say
A, B, C.
And here I am, that same child,
now a man writing poems in silence,
learning the lessons of life;
cooking, eating, taking care of my health,
talking to walls, pressure cookers,
furniture,
and the pages of history—
all by myself.
With my boat, I am going nowhere.
The sails, the mast, the boom lie still,
though the wind keeps pressing against them.
The rigging and lines have grown weary;
even the keel and rudder seem tired
of carrying me nowhere. Hence tied.
There is an unspeakable sorrow
in knowing that tomorrow,
when another dawn breaks,
I may still be here—
anchored to the same place.
Around me, the waters awaken.
The port stirs to life.
Other boats slip quietly into the morning,
their sails catching the restless wind,
their hulls gliding towards distant horizons.
Every dawn seems to renew them;
every morning gives them another beginning.
But I remain.
I am in a fix—
caught between staying
and setting myself free.
Perhaps I should sell the boat,
let someone else take her out to sea,
let another hand hold the wheel,
another heart trust the wind.
Yet how does one sell a boat
that has carried so much of one's life?
So I sit here,
listening to the water
and watching the others disappear
beyond the harbour mouth,
wondering whether my boat is truly anchored—
or whether
I have simply forgotten
how to sail.
The same words,
different verse—
fear, joy, love,
bitter, sweet,
punched in and out
of sentences,
of days,
of lives.
They have said it all before,
yet mean something new, tragic, or fun
each time they return.
Love once meant forever;
now it means letting go.
Joy was once a song;
now it is the quiet flow
between two sorrows.
Fear was once a warning;
now it is the shadow
of things already lost.
Bitter and sweet—
two words we keep apart,
though life has always known
they belong together.
We keep rearranging the words,
changing their places,
changing their clothes,
hoping perhaps
they will tell a different story.
But the words remain.
It is we who change—
we who grow weary
of giving them meaning,
we who discover
that every sentence
has been written
with a little of ourselves.
The words.
The same words.
Different verse.
And now, I'm exhausted,
I have nothing left to say—
except perhaps this:
sometimes silence
is not the absence of experience,
it is the experience of absence.
Words can neither heal, nor harm
They can neither hurt, nor charm.
It is what remains
when the words
have finally told
the truth.
To understand our story,
you must think as we do—
in minds thick with blankness,
where words lie submerged,
waiting like bubbles
to break the silence.
I have nothing to offer
except my willing hand.
You may travel through time and space,
across the seas, across the land;
I shall walk beside you
through every night and dawn,
and wherever your journey leads,
my hand will hold you on.
But there is no promise of words.
I cannot rest until you deliver
what lies hidden beneath the silence.
You will have to think as we do,
feel what we cannot utter,
and gather the scattered fragments
of what we have been—
for only then
can our unwritten story
find a voice,
and our history
live beyond us.
Je suis — jusqu'ici,
tout va bien — mais
avec cela commence
l'histoire du corps
et de l'esprit ;
cette fiction est
la source de toutes
nos misères.
Till I am it is okay
But with that the
Story of the body and
The mind begins
This fiction is the source
Of all our miseries.
Voices crowd into my head.
The weather is overcast and grim;
grey clouds obscure the sun.
Characters, structures of every kind,
swirl through my restless mind.
I'm torn between here and there,
belonging nowhere,
except among the corners
of the Globe Theatre.
In the crepuscular hour,
when daylight loosens its
hold on the earth
and evening gathers its shadows,
I walk alone beneath the trees.
There is a susurration
in the leaves,
a mellifluous murmur
of wind and memory,
as though the earth
were speaking
in a language older
than sorrow.
Then rain comes—
brief, silver, almost evanescent—
and leaves upon
the dry earth
the dark fragrance
of petrichor,
a scent that carries
me to places I can n
o longer name.
Through the branches,
a lambent light trembles,
neither day nor night,
but something suspended
between them.
And suddenly,
in that quiet,
the world becomes oneiric—
half memory, half dream—
while the last warmth of the sun
rests upon my hands:
a small apricity
borrowed from winter.
There is something
numinous here,
something that makes
silence sacred,
something indubitable
though impossible to prove
that beauty does not stay.
It arrives like light,
whispers like leaves,
breathes through rain,
and disappears before
we can possess it.
Perhaps that is why
the heart tries to name it—
though the deepest things
remain ineffable,
and all our words,
however beautiful,
are only candles
held up against the dark.
I have
sinned
with my words,
thoughts, and actions.
I have to admit
that against you, you,
and you, I have sinned.
If I
don't seek your pardon,
I cannot forgive myself.
If I don't confess my guilt,
the conflict will not heal.
When I
see my countries fight,
in black and white, or brown,
they are all my own
we are all our own
When I see them engaged
in endless wars,
I feel the weight of knowing
that I never resolved my issues
with you.
If I want
my land and water
to be at peace,
if I want my heaven and earth
to be at ease,
I have to resolve the
pending disconnects;
I have to dissolve
the walls of neglect.
