Vow Of Silence Poem by Amy Sutton

Now I see why
We kept that vow between us;
Some quiet thing inside
That knew just how thin
Those eggshells were
That we were walking on.

Falling wordlessly
Into each others arms
And hearts,
Sometimes gently,
Sometimes hard enough
To knock the breath out of us.

The point was
We were always there
To catch each other.
We fitted;
A bizzare
Emotional jigsaw
Of two pieces.

A perfect symbiosis,
Where the love ran so deep
It was beyond pain;
Beyond need;
Beyond speech.

And we sleepwalked
Our stuttering,
Tumbling,
Beautiful ballet
For how long?
Years.

Just don't speak.
Don't say it.
Because when you do,
It flits between your fingers
Like a golden butterfly
And crumbles into dust.

Don't speak.
You'll wake the dreamers.
And I'd have slept for years
By your side,
Not knowing
What we had already taken as given.

And now it seems
To make up for
The terrible words I spoke –
Those tiny words that shattered us
Into the two broken shards
Of you and me –

To make up for me
Breaking my vow,
You're keeping silent for two.