Shh.
Don’t speak,
no need.
Don’t ask,
don’t need,
don’t want for anything.
Just keep quiet, now.

That’s what they’ve been teaching me.
Don’t make noise.
Don’t disrupt
what’s quiet.
Be seen, not–
shh.

I look around me
at leaves allowed to crackle
a rain that beats down our doors
a wind with high-pitched whine
a child in class
who’s upturned hand
is too young to be told
to understand
why I stay silent.

This is the silence that stiffens hotly,
curls against the ground as a creeping mist.
It comes to fill in the cracks,
clouding my breath
in a cottony hold
where tongues grow heavy
and arms are bound.

But I want for something
what the silence fills,
to make noise in this world
and not be told
shh.
Don’t disrupt
what’s quiet.

To be a noise slicing loud
without apology
chasing away the mist
that has filled my lungs for too long.
To be the thunder
that comes with the rain.

So child,
raise your voice with your hand.
Make noise,
don’t be told–
be unbound.