Sepal

“Sepal”

My throat is laid bare
Waiting for something new,
Something that I can share,
For a new memory or two.
What I can’t remember that I wish I could,
What I can’t remember that I know I should.

I’m in the silence of feelings I cannot trust,
As though the years have been a lie.
And as they dwindle from embers to dust
I feel like I’m waiting for someone else to die.

Always I cannot speak with so much to say
To the next soul that will leave me someday.
What sentences form from the quietness
Are but a token of absence, and loneliness.

I speak for the sake of a sound to discern
And as the echoes of nothingness return
To my ears, as the silences surround
I speak anew for the sake of a sound.

There are no petals left here to protect—
Only silences respond to what I project.
Only speeches that I hope I can rehearse
And the footfall of time I wish I could reverse
For the sake of a past conversation to be
Something to keep me from feeling so lonely.

I do not speak unless spoken to
By the memory of voices I once knew.
I can pretend they are here all the day long,
As I listen to some selfsame, sad old song
But there are no souls to listen to me here,
And my words fall into my own ear.

There are no petals for me the serve,
And I wonder if this is the life that I deserve.
There is nobody…my chords upon my lonely string
Sing but a song of quiet suffering.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle