where silence stays

on stilts, I walk through the haze where silence stays,
there’s a trail of blood I follow towards the night, where
words are without sound and only the shrieks are heard,
another one is hunted, another one is sighing in arms
of death which comforts better than the living can do,

a body is found in the swamp of ignorance, indifference,
his lips are sealed with a long needle of fear, a remnant
of a thread hanging by his lower lip, in an eternal wisp
of a smile, I tug at it to open, hear the words of the dead.

I ache to know what is in silence, amid the numbing noise
of an inhumane blow, of a machete, of a piercing bullet.

.

I wrote a piece for the prompt at dVerse last night but careless that I am, I forgot to save it and ended up losing it. It was oddly melancholic for me because I was satisfied with my words for the first time in months. Today, I tried writing again(in long hand to minimize the risk of losing my words yet again) to raise my voice with all others at dVerse Poetics, in favour of freedom of speech and expression, and against all forms of censorship and forced silence. This piece is not a political commentary; just based on the idea of how I feel for those who dare to speak.

Image source: Low Haze at Dusk by Elaine Jones