Fear My Return Poem by Matt Starking

Fear My Return
I went quietly,
like frost leaving a window,
like smoke loosening its grip on a room
no one aired.
You called it peace.
You called it closure.
You folded my name into drawers
with old batteries and bent spoons,
told yourself memory was a soft thing.
But I was only waiting.
Not in thunder
no drums, no banners
only in the slow arithmetic of wounds,
in the marrow's patience,
in the stubborn seed beneath a stone.
You will hear me first
in the hinge that won't stop singing,
in footsteps that echo one beat too many,
in the mirror's refusal
to lie on your behalf.
Fear my return
not because I come with fire,
but because I come with truth.
Because I will wear your forgotten promises
like medals.
Because I will knock
with every hand you turned away.
I have learned the dark roads.
I have tasted silence until it spoke.
I have named the ghosts
you hired to replace me.
And when I stand again
in the doorway of your certainty,
with eyes sharpened by exile,
with a voice tempered like steel
you will know
I am not here for mercy.
I am here
to finish the sentence
you were too afraid
to hear begun.