Silence

by jennifer lynn browning

Bound tongues. Different silences held by the barbed wire of braces, the granite of stiff upper lips, the earthquakes of crying tremors. A chorus of silence, each with its own timbre.

First silence stands up her body enrapt in golden clothes face elegantly painted and primed form graceful and charming. She waits for a free scream, an uninhibited moment when decorum can be set aside and passion fear joy grief can burst forth, volcanic emoting of the fires within.

Another silence. His beard frosted by the coldness of his thoughts. Looks

on heartache on tempests on despair and hungers to let loose cries trapped, cries forbidden his masculine exterior, reserved for times before “big boys don’t cry.”

One more joins the chorus. Her tongue bound by her own belief that hers is not enough, not profound witty smart gifted enough to see the light which shines all around her. Hers is the silence of emptiness and doom, a prisoner of self, most fiercely guarded of all, never paroled, but censored and beaten, before any good deed can make recompense.