Silence

You smile at the collection of words that fall off my tongue like poetry

and you tell me that my mind, conquering words around its grip, 

is the night before a revolution. 

You would not understand. 

I think this mind 

not of the beam that kindles among the fogs of despair 

but of the restless breath of desired self-destruction 

lingering among the choke of muskets and leftover rot. 

You cannot see this thick skyline I've built 

from my own trembling hands 

out of guilt and wretched conflicts.

These damn warriors in my mind knows no merciful surrender

They screech

with different pitches of panic, 

in ways you would not understand. 

It is always gunshot loud. 

And I must bleed out these tormented voices in my head into poetry, 

into words that glimmer pretty on paper. 

It is not my feeble mind that conquers these words. 

It is these words that grip itself around prisoner shackles 

and sets this mind
free. 

Just for a few moments.
But enough to hear the soft, sweet serenity of nothingness—

the simple stalemate embraced by the absence of

thoughts ringing in lost directions. 

You must understand

I write poetry to focus in on a haven of small words. 

I pick the right one out, carefully, one at a time. 

This is my distraction — my medicine of quiet salvation, 

my fleeting tastes of silence.