The Poems We Could not Write

There are words that we do not express. There are moments where we gauge the time has not come for such speech.  There are deep experiences that we feel too vulnerable to share.  There are sentiments which may be received differently to how we intend them and we do not wish harm on others.  We have seen the harm that some social media posts have generated and we lament that harm.  The following free verse is for all of those experiences that we are unable to bring ourselves to articulate. 

The Poems We Could not Write

Here is a verse

To the words within,

The poems we could not write.

Pregnant with potency

Yet unsuitable

Somehow not safe

To be birthed

Into the light

Of day.

These are our secret selves.

Not that we wish to be scurrilous,

But we intuit

That some of us

Just cannot be said.

It is part

Of that unique alone

That we must bear ourselves.

Others may not appreciate its richness

Or fathom its depths.

And so we risk

Breaking our souls

Against the misunderstanding minds,

Like ships

Rent on the rocky waves

The foam carrying our splintering self

Back into the dark depths.

So, in that vault

We guard

As single sentinels

The love that never lived,

The anger never spent,

The tears silently shed,

The dreams dissolved,

As we sit

In our solitude.

The only common ground

That we tread upon

Is that we all

Have such treasures

Under the peaty turf

Of our lives,

But cannot,

In the hummus of our hearts,

Send those blessed experiences up

As shoots towards the sun.

Simon C.J. Falk             1 December 2013