Dave Hughes: Voices

Our voice?

Perhaps the only thing,

perhaps the only truth.

Is that we compressed,

our need,

our desperation,

our striving toward the light,

into the search for our voice.

Then found that it’s a facade,

a filthy pantomime,

a masturbation of the Id.

We build Ivy clad temples

to the gods of language,

ignoring the sycophantic truth.

That rhythms and rhymes,

diction and form,

are just jungle gyms.

Vacant frames.

And the great wordsmiths,

were but children crying in the dark.

 

My voice?

Did you steal it from me?

No, I just threw it away.

Having found it,

after years of silence.

I cupped my hands around it,

protecting it.

Fed it honesty and love.

Sat alone for hours,

listening to it.

Hearing it.

Allowed it to bring me places I had never been,

places I hadn’t dreamed existed.

found a vast country alive inside myself.

Was happy.

Til.

You shambled by,

base and ignorant.

Beat your chest once.

I took the bait,

I forgot it all,

and as i hurried out the door to break your face,

I crushed,

my voices fragile whisper.