my mother couldn’t use similes
to describe silence in her days
so when she tried to teach me
how not to be an introvert like
a barn owl in soft hooting
with broken wings in a castle
that’s my body,
she failed the litmus test
of verbal communication,
since, I, her microphonic_son
was used to reading the endless
lists of father’s laws & instruction.
beside me silence echoes
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe!”
it bears an unkind rhythm, only
a son, like me, would understand
what it means when silence
clamps to the body in a way that
shadow & voice are not felt,
even so_if I was to learn how to
unlock my lips like a zip & breathe
air to my silence, it’ll still find a way
to crawl into a cave of fetters,
to process unspeakable words,
to plaster, fold, cast & mask, the
foundation layout _remind me again,
what’s the measurement of granite
& sands for building a parliament
where silence would dwell?
I need to build, I need to build
the things mum couldn’t say
nor imagine into this poem,
each broken letter of
similes she couldn’t assemble;
each tear_distiller, lips_blunder,
for some death & silence there is no autopsy,
her silence too knows
where my lips are,
catches me babbling at 2 am.