I can drown in words.
They are thick in me like a fog;
Inside it there is quiet,
A never-ceasing tone of nothing
Ringing in my ears.
I hear none of it as it passes through me:
Only the cobwebs that cling, syllables and inflections
In radial patterns―and fragile-seeming
Until I try to escape their grasp.
I yearn to take your dreams and swallow them down,
Braid them together like rising smoke with mine,
Until they bear away on your wind,
And trouble me no more.
Oh, you do not want my words . . .
They would harden around you,
Brittle and grey,
Mocking and encasing,
And I would be further from you with each one,
Across that frozen sea.
Be a lighthouse for me, my love,
And let your light press into that fog;
Let it clear and be empty as the sky at dawn,
And my heart is within it for you to find.