584. Mute

There was once, long ago, a girl who did not speak.

The other villagers around, said she was a freak.

They said she used to speak quite well,

Then one day was asked, and could not tell,

The answer to a simple quandary.

She moved her mouth, though no sound seemed to break free.

One day, a village man spied her walking away,

Out into the woods,…and followed through the foggy gray,

To a secluded forest house.

She entered as he snuck like a mouse,…

To the window,…and heard voices inside.

She was speaking!…which injured his village pride.

“How manipulative! Pretending not to speak!”

“Not speaking with us!…Fraudulently quiet and meek!”

He thought about telling everyone straight away,

But decided it was best to confront her that day.

So when she returned late that night,

He approached her by blazing torchlight.

“I heard you speaking well in the forest”,

“Why don’t you give your playacting a good rest!”

She looked down tensely and then found a stick and wrote,…

In the dirt, the clearly etched words: “Don’t I get a vote?”

“‘Fore you judged, why’d you not ask me?”

“Why I can’t speak to you all,…and flee,…”

“Into the forest,…where I met a friend”,…

“In whose safety, my spare time I would soon spend?”

“Speak! What are you so afraid of?”, he asked fiercely.

“I fear the loss of soul and self”, she wrote solemnly.

“I do not understand”, he yelled, “Just use your voice!”

“Why do you feign as if there is no actual choice?

She wrote out: “Do we choose to feel?”…

“For if so, tell me how not to feel.

For, no, I do not want to feel this way,

And wish I could go back to a former day,

When I felt I was secure to feel, and to be…

Before I fell down hard, and no one ever caught me.

Screams, when unheard, hurt fatally,

And take away the voices’ ability,…

To react…to actuate…to explain,…

And deep within the throat all that’s left is pain.

I fiercely want to speak, but my voice turns to stone,

And leaves me in the silence,…bitterly all alone.”

The man stormed off abruptly in rage and disgust,

‘Til he saw the boy from the forest kicking up dust,…

Nearby,…”I saw it all”, he said.

The man spoke to the stranger ahead:

“You should leave or you will wind up dead”.

“I’ll leave”, the boy replied, “…first, I must speak”.

“If you wish to be angry then you should seek,…

The voice of ev’ry villager who stayed silent,…

While injustice was done:…turned away and were absent.

She tried to tell all the elders,…

But they did not hold her voice as hers.

No one believed,…they stood idly by,

As she was rejected for being hurt by,…

The former chief of the tribe,…many years ago.

She tried to say aloud, but no one wanted to know.

If you wish to seek answers, then you should be sure,

To inquire for them, wherever they may occur.”

The boy slinked back,…out of the light,…

Into the forest, and out of sight.

The next morning, the girls’ body was found,

In the crystal lake nearby, where she had drowned.

The unheard silence had swallowed her up for good,

And the villagers,…they never truly understood,…

That silence speaks when words can not,…

And when understanding is not sought,…

The truth,…it does not go away,…

Someone will know….

….Someone will pay.

K. Aldaya, 6/15/22

Picture: By Saksham Gangwar on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/Pv7LzcSVsNg

529. Providence

One day when I was a young girl I came home from school.

I walked into an empty kitchen and removed a piercing tool.

It’s hard to explain how one comes to make such a decision,

And who can truly understand without expansive inquisition.

It was not a fleeting thought; nor was it to be my last…

Thinking that if things be planned by God, then my die had long been cast.

My life could only lead to one inevitable end.

No matter what I wished could be, my life I couldn’t defend.

I waited a minute, and then another, thinking on death and life.

I stared off thinking how thin the line is, such as the blade of a knife,

Then I took a breath, closed my eyes, and lied down on my bed.

Seconds feel like hours with the knowledge that you’ll soon be dead.

I held the tool against my heart listening to the sound:

Budump. Budump. Budump. Budump.

Pound, and Pound, and Pound!

As tears washed down my face like a tidal wave of doom,

I looked away from the rising climax, to the ceiling of my room.

I bitterly cursed the light above, which had failed to shine my way,

And had left me in the darkness from my earliest remembered day.

As the tension rose within and pushed the arms to act,

A clang-clang, clang-clang, clang-clang…spurned every muscle within to contract!

The drawstring on the light above, weighted on it’s tip had swung to the glass above it,

And hit………………..and hit………………………and hit!

My breath was gone, and my thoughts replaced,

With how this could logically be the case.

How something could move so eagerly without a hand in sight.

It had never happened once before, and never again after that night.

Why I was not to die that day I may never know the reason;

Though I’ve learned from life that for everything there’s a time and a season;

And for some reason something or someone in this vast universe,

Wanted me to be here now, to write for you this verse.

To tell you that I was once there,…walking that line ‘tween life and death,

And I’m here now to tell you that there’s much more length and breadth.

Life has it’s ups and downs, and neither’s more important.

Each breath and second that is lived is what’s most significant.

In ways one can not fathom in this form of blood and bone.

Simply remember the universe is endless, you’re important, and you’re never truly alone.

K. Aldaya, 1/13/21

Picture: By Greg Rakozy on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/oMpAz-DN-9I

324. Tragedy Incarnate

I am the ghost of who I used to be,

Who is haunting this world now, for eternity.

I’ve lived a million lifetimes. I feel it in my bones;

The aching of sore fingers spent manuscripting tomes.

Stories of humanity… of tragedies and victories;

Of poverty and destruction. Wealth and vanities.

Will the story ever end? And what will be it’s ending?

I’m tired of thinking and repeating. My soul needs time for mending.

You and I, we are the story of the universe.

We’ve written it out, in our blood accursed.

Will time end and its’ confines of aching bone and skin.

Prisoners: most ignorant of the cage we continue to live in?

We all write on…another chapter for the universe to read;

So it can expand endlessly, while we (mere) mortals just bleed.

Bleed planets, and bleed the stars…Our souls are etched with the scars,

Of the universes’ beauty;

Written on each gravestone, and carved from fleshly duty.

K. Aldaya, 12/16/15

Picture: By Michael Lloyd ; http://www.lightstalking.com/the-shark-tank-and-what-you-missed-this-week-on-light-stalking/

242. My Own Little World

Sometimes I can’t live here anymore.

I have to feel something.

In this world I can’t be weak.

I cannot show my wounded core.

I cannot be a freak.

And so sometimes I have to fly,

Into fantasies and plots,

Constructed from favorite movie scenes;

A main character am I,

On which the conflict leans.

I am strange and am a freak,

And for that reason I am hurt;

But I am important to the play.

There I am saved though weak.

There a freak can save the day!

So I am hurt by the villains,

And then rescued by the heroes.

The heroes understand my pain,

And thus seek revenge on the villains.

The villains mustn’t cause further pain!

I will help since I am a freak.

In movies the freaks are special;

And with my powers and strength,

I do not have to think twice.

I save the day with all of my strength!

I am rescued from pain and torture.

Loved when I never was before.

I am no longer a freak or whore,

And am able to use my strangeness to cure,

The ills of the world, and order restore.

Sometimes I can’t live here anymore.

Where I am a freak, and not special at all.

Where I was not rescued and nobody cared,

And the villains escaped long, long before;

And really I am just a freak and a whore.

K. Aldaya, 07/04/13

Picture: Photographer Unknown; http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/images/2008/09/26/noheroics.jpg

68. For All Time More

Here lies shadow,

Hence, nothing more,

Phantasmically bestrewed across the floor.

For all time more. For all time more.

Fear to ask from whence it bore,

This person’s cast upon the floor.

For all time more. For all time more.

Strangers hear from every shore,

The tale of shadow that moves not for,

All time more. All time more.

The tale of life from distant lore,

Which through times’ pass,

You more implore.

(A tale that you can’t ignore)

For all time more. For all time more.

An unknown land lost in war,

A person lived behind closed door.

For all time more. For all time more.

Closed off from all

That makes hearts soar,

And none to hear the pain it bore…

To the shadow left upon the floor.

With the knowledge gone before.

Lost behind a clos’ed door,

Far off on a distant shore.

Told in an ancient lore.

For all time more. For all time more.

K. Aldaya, 8/8/04

Picture: “Dark Corridor II” by Bicepk on Deviant Art; http://bicepk.deviantart.com/art/Dark-corridor-II-173833121