Leah DeCresce (9.16.90 / Akron)

NOTE: This poem was originally located at the link provided in my profile.

we coexist in a way that darwin would have admired.
the air is thick with our unspoken words
entire silent sentences litter the ground like fallen leaves in autumn
after the first month of talking, there was nothing left to say.
i won't tell you that it kills me
every word left unsaid fills my mind
it runs thick through my veins until a single tear is shed
but this time, they come out in floods.
the days we spend together are few and far between.
moments in each others company are filled with an unpleasant and eery silence
a calculated look tossed from one to another,
and a slight touch that no longer inspires jealousy.
we pass each other in the halls with no acknowledgement of what we truly are.
it should kill me, but instead i am left alive
this heart still beats beneath rotting flesh.
it is in these moments that i have come to a bitter realization:
i am living my own, modern day nightmares,
with a reality that is too brutal to wake up to.
i choose instead to leave it unfaced, and sleep the days away,
dreaming of better times when i didn't hang on your every motion
praying for any word to break the silence.

4.26.07