Silence

The first few moments of silence seem to be the worst. Every time I hear it, or fail to, I learn something new about the silence, about the quiet. It gets deep inside, worse than any words, worse than anything anyone could do us me. It's like torture, not knowing what's going to happen, what already has happened.

I can't help but hear the silence. It gets inside before I realise it, and everything starts working all too fast for my own liking. Rapid conclusions, rash and dangerous, are met with fear, panic, suggestion! Nothing I can ever do will prepare me to deal with it. I'm an emotional being; it's my greatest asset, but my greatest liability, and in the silence I hear the thoughts I don't want to. In the silence I feel the panic set in, and I'm reminded of everything that's happened in the past.

The details aren't important. Not the ones behind this text, nor the ones behind the fear. None of that is important, but moving on. Except... I don't think I can ever move on. What's why I'm becoming a teacher, though, isn't it? Because I know how hard it is to get past all this, and I don't want to see another person have to experience it, not if I can help it. Sure, I couldn't help myself, but that was different. That was so much different.

In the silence, I hear words of torture. Not just when something bad happens, or when I think something bad happens, but just... just when there's silence. Sure, I try to fight it off with music or with traffic, but the silence always creeps in. You know that time when the cars are all gone and the song ends? That's when it gets inside again, and the wheels all start working. It's like... oh, you know the story of getting a thousand chimps together with typewriters and they'll eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare? Well, it's like that, only instead of Shakespeare, its dark, sometimes Gothic poetry. It's perhaps the most depressing thing I can create, and yet I don't want it to stop. Every time I write them I feel a freedom I can't describe. The closest thing would be like being released from a cage. If the cage was also on fire.

Of course, I can't always share the poems. I do occasionally. Every second poem seems to creep into the public eye, but some are a bit too personal. Some I only want a few people to see, until I can work up the courage to submit them somewhere. That's always an option, if I can manage it. I could take another option too, and just try get a poetry book published, but I doubt anyone would accept the poetry of an author who hasn't yet gotten something published in an established magazine, or won a competition or anything like that.

All that from the word silence, the idea behind silence... It produces a strange aroma that drives the mind wild. It sends us spiralling down dark alley-ways, always in search of meaning. Silence. Sweet, beautiful, painful silence.