Pandora Would Like To Say A Word: A Poem

Between us stand a hundred conversations

That we never had. All the struggles within

Us, untackled, muted, piling up, right up to

The oesophagus and still we dared not to speak.

 

Would we still be speaking if we had opened

Our frightened mouths, if we had found the right

Words in the right moment? Or did we just need an

Excuse, unspoken, to officially draw the line?

 

We carried the emotions attached to the words

That we left unsaid around within us, wearing

Our hearts on our sleeves, keeping ourselves at bay,

Not taking risks, silently boiling over under cold

Muting showers. The ghost conversations pottering

In our brains, our bloodstream, as if everything had

Been just yesterday, the fresh meat, the bones in our mouth.

 

What happens if we don’t verbalise the avalanche

Galloping up from our throats, where does it go, will it

Make us sick, sick to the core, fattening, expanding, unused,

Lacking metamorphosis, the bad staying bad, reeking,

Dreaming of becoming something, healthy, creative,

And we keep shoving it down our throats into our gut,

The tongue a muscle not living up to its potential, because

Of us, and the energy that hits walls after walls within us

Will find its own way of getting back at us instead of us liberating

It, until, in conclusion, it draws a line through our own name

And goes up in flames.