Read Poem: silence., by dhwani shah

I haven’t done this in a while.
I’m not used to hearing my own voice.

The silence shields me.
It gathers around, as if guarding.
But this house still talks to me.

The stairs leading up to our bedroom,
They take me down a memory lane.
I still wonder why you couldn’t let me share your pain.

I see you’re smiling at me,
The way you always used to;
From within that photograph.

I’m waiting for this silence to be broken,
I’m waiting to hear you laugh.

These walls hold frozen moments
that decorated our palace.
I look at them now,
Hung, was your life in the balance.

What did you see that you couldn’t say?
What could you feel, that you didn’t stay?
Why didn’t you just call me?
I shouldn’t have left the house that day.

I recognise that look in your eyes
Like you were always seeing ghosts.
And now every mirror in this house,
It boasts,
Of showing each their own ghosts.

You were depressed
When you said
You wanted to be on your own.

Did our big house
Leave a lot of space
For you to be alone?

It creaks and it moans
Provoking my un-cried tears.
Brick, wood and stone
Standing testimony to your fears.

To your sadness
That desperately needed hope.
But your hands,
Your hands instead found a rope.

Reminiscent on this ledge
I can feel your fingerprints
Married into the blueprint

I stand where you stood then
I tremor at the slightest touch
Did you clutch or did you just jump?
Your note didn’t say much.

I shouldn’t have left the house that day
I shouldn’t have left the house that day
I shouldn’t have left the house that day
That’s all I could hear myself say
To keep my mind at bay,
from imagining.

I imagine you roar.
You roaring with pain.
It echoes in these ceilings,
In the mirrors, I point to the blame.

If only you had asked me,
I would have guarded
Your blood with my sweat.

But in the end
It feels like
Maybe we never even met.

I can feel you roaring still
Like a dragon drawing breaths.
Yet, the house remains indifferent.
Winter never ends.

And as I lose myself in you,
Twilight tears the house in two.
A deep distant gold
And a very dark blue.

So I turn around and I walk a mile.

I haven’t done this in a while.
The silence is too loud.
I’m not used to hearing my own voice.