Silence blooms out of her like a terrible rose
Her words are dried up as dead petals
Her tongue – a red stone
She dreamt he cut it out
She dreamt the smell of blood,
dripping from her mouth,
like Ovid’s Philomela.
And she is left with this ruined girl
Who stares into the mirror,
mute and petrified.
She does not know who this creature is
Her bruised lips; stained
Her pale breasts, small apples; stained
Her moon hips; stained
Her body has become so strange to her
Limp and hungry, it should shrink away
And this silence is delicious to her
It enthralls her
An intoxication of silence, to share with no one else
She would only infest others,
if she were to speak
Her puppeteer is satisfied, gone now
He said she was so cold
That was a gift
He taught her not to speak, that fickle friend
But she is soothed
Because that was not love she gave
Not the love he thought
That was her sickness in disguise
Her tongue was just a bitter muscle,
used to spit out the lies