For Ma

I have been thinking 

often

about silence 

 

I understand the mouth

and how it seems 

separate from the body 

because it is the vessel 

of language 

languages

of thought made sound

or

the prison of speech

the shallow grave 

or a stillbirth

so close

and yet

 

I understand

there are things 

we don’t say

things we can’t 

for reasons that multiply

out of themselves

reasons known by words 

such as shame or honor 

or oppression or fear 

or defiance or death 

or infancy or love 

or tracheal damage 

or trauma or hate 

or 

or 

oral history 

is a brave history

 

what do you do 

to not feel the 

heaviness

of the 

outsideness

of the 

homesickness

of the homelessness

 

how do you leave 

again and again

how do you leave 

without leaving

 

how do you make 

a movement forward 

when you are displaced 

in space

conjugating tenses

how do you move 

in the face of 

impermanence

 

I understand

what it means to have a mother

with a life before

a history separate

but the source of your own

a mother who did not speak 

could not speak

a mother who has no say

in if she leaves or not

 

I understand

what it means 

to not

understand

and to stand 

mouth open

and hear

no sound

 

I understand 

silence 

so well

 

especially the silence of this one room

this one space

the silence I try to solve 

with speaking

and sometimes fucking

the silence that exists before

and after us

because of us

despite us 

the silence that gave birth to us

that is killing us

in this room

in this space 

between us

 

I want to say so many sentences 

but they all begin with I

 

I apologize.

I am the only thing I really know.