conversations with a prisoner

Silence tells me
            “I’ve been buried alive for six years now”
behind bars, hundreds of miles away
he writes
to purge
and I open my arms, ready
for whatever words rush into them.

I want to tell him that I’m buried too--
I have covered by true essences in lies
and distractions; have made mazes
out of cornfields.

It is not the same, of course.
He, locked behind bars, “a danger to society”
ie: a young black male.
me, a young white girl, locked
in self-imposed silence,
self-induced brain damage.

I want to speak my secrets.
They claw at my throat like cats at a door.
I write them, erase them, scribble over words,
edit words, edit time,
edit memory.

This is why I cannot journal in the traditional sense.

We’re both just groping in the dark, Silence and I.
Looking for comfort, freedom
solace
to give wings to silent stories
too terrible to be told.