Deviation Actions
Literature Text
“She’s so quiet. Does she have a voice?”
“Speak for yourself. Don’t make me do your talking.”
“You must not be very smart if you can’t talk.”
“She thinks she’s so high and mighty, she won’t even deign to speak to us.”
Sticks and stones
Are bliss
Compared to words
Flung with intent to maim
Each is a blow
Shattering my ribs
Bruising my eyes
And keeping me
quieter
and quieter
“I heard she’s emo or something. She’s probably thinking about how best to kill herself.”
“Don’t be stupid. She’s not thinking at all.”
Assumptions and presumptions
But never enough gumption
To ask me myself—
It all ends in abruption
Worst of all
Is when not one punch
Is thrown at me at all
I’m an apparition, a wraith, a specter
Everything
except
a banshee
“Don’t talk to her. Just ignore her.”
Their beatings
Must be true
Their stabs
Surely accurate
I don’t have a voice
Worth voicing
Or even a voice at all
…
But then, there’s one
Just one
With the impact
Of a million
My bones are knit together
My blood is scrubbed away
And I realize
my voice
may be a voice after all
“That one there, she doesn’t talk much. But I can see it—she has lots of thoughts, just waiting to be heard.”
