If you spoke one word, she would look up
from her blank journal page,
nod at you, and go back to
the endless stream of thoughts or silence in her head.
If you begged her to reveal her thoughts,
she’d share with you whatever clouded expression
could disguise her pain: a blank stare,
a brief shrug, a smile or
a quick glance to hide her tear-streaked cheeks.
Once she gave me no response at all
except for the tear
rolling down her pale cheeks as we sat outside
in the brisk wind. I remember
class had ended early, and she feared returning
home so soon, so we sat
on the bench near that fountain,
where fathers took their children
and the young children laughed
and the fathers smiled,
and I dirtied the air with talk of my day
and the weather and the prospect of tomorrow, and she sat
listening as though my chatter was important.
That was in November.
Winter had arrived,
the imminent snow was felt
in each breath of cold air. Noise
was such a comfort to her that year,
the year of her self destruction.

She would remember
his callous touch, the internal torment, the torture
when she woke up alive,
and it couldn’t have caused any more pain had
the leaves of the trees whispered
her dark story among themselves, reminding her
of those nights…
She would let the pain overcome her, and I would continued
talking to cloud the silence.

And even once she had escaped the sins
that had become her lifelessness,
sometimes, once in many months,
she felt an eye—the man’s eye—that crowded her thoughts,
and unsteadily, she would turn away
without a word.