So Much

There was so much to say.

There still is.

But silence came down
like a curtain
and stayed there.

I could have said
a million things.
I could have explained myself
until morning.

But would you have heard me?

All the signs said no.

So I said nothing.

Not the kind of nothing
that means peace.
Not rest.
Not forgiveness.

Something else.

An Easter Sunday.
A barbecue by the bayou.
Smoke in the trees.
Plates on a table.
The ordinary mercy
of a spring afternoon.

That was the last time
I heard your voice.

“I have a life now,” I said.

I don’t remember
what came after.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe some small sentence
that seemed harmless then.

Then silence.

Years of it.

The kind of silence
that enters the house
and learns where everything is.

The kind that sits
at the foot of the bed.

The kind that follows you
into prayer
and does not kneel.

And now,
just like that,
you are getting married.

So what am I supposed to say?

After all the words
I buried.

After all the words
that drowned
in the small, dark pool
of my grief.

This silence
is not something
I would wish
on anyone.

Not even the people
who earned my anger.

And I wonder,

is silence easy for you?

Has it become
a country you live in
without thinking?

Because for me
it is still
a locked room

and I am still inside it,

speaking.