Leave me trapped
and I shall smile at you, mutely.
Free me with a look
and I shall attempt to speak.
I am a mute ablated thing,
impeccably restrained,
armed, cocked, primed to detonate
my speech upon you but I cannot
unless you permit me to:
I cannot express my need to speak to you
without that certain look - the key is in your eye.
I am too mute, too burrowed into my own eyes
and in the heart of my head too afraid
to speak uninvitedly - even to you.
Sometimes I have the caged, mute thing's urge
to startle - to speak, de profundis, out-of-the-blue,
as if through a periscopic tube. I could shock.
I could genuinely shock you if I permitted I
to shock you - with speech - but I encage me,
inescapably, because I am too silent to be seen.
Sometimes I have the glorious urge
to rage at the cage of my confinement
and to break this profound epoch of silence
but I cannot.
I am a mere skin-covered mute, sweet-smiling thing:
a gentle, feathered skeleton of convolution –
a caged thing – caged by a need for you
to manumit me. I burn gently sometimes
with a desire to be voiced, to be asinine, foolish,
loud, rancid - to boom and gloriously whisper
Hello? to you or even I love you!
but I cannot.
Leave me trapped
and I shall smile at you, mutely.
Free me with a look
and I shall attempt to speak.