04-07-2018, 11:46 PM
Voices in the Quiet
There was a secretÂ
whispered in my room at night.
When I would cry out,
my parents would say
the house was settling,
that it was nothing. Lies
are the comfortable clothes
we wear to keep us from being afraid.
Still, I would crouch down,
press my ear to the vent beneathÂ
the bed, and hear the click, click, click
of retreating footsteps. I would wake
curled on the floor, words dark
as tar stuck to my tongue
in the mute light of morning.
There was a secretÂ
whispered in my room at night.
When I would cry out,
my parents would say
the house was settling,
that it was nothing. Lies
are the comfortable clothes
we wear to keep us from being afraid.
Still, I would crouch down,
press my ear to the vent beneathÂ
the bed, and hear the click, click, click
of retreating footsteps. I would wake
curled on the floor, words dark
as tar stuck to my tongue
in the mute light of morning.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson