The tip of my 

tongue is brick red

these days,

from trying to spell out words 

it no longer remembers.


Hellos are now 

flailing waves of hands.

Goodbyes, a nod of the head.

Thank yous, a bunch of white lilies

with a stem of orchid.


My canvases are empty,

save for the huge blots of ink

from broken nibs 

struggling to put to paper

the million unsaid things.

Emails are no better than a jumble

of blank spaces and dots.


In a roomful of people,

I'm often alone,

my brain paralysed, 

neurons turned to stone.

Conversations 

have become alien 

to my skin. 

They are alpha particles

bouncing back 

to different corners of the world

echoing the void within.  


My heart expands a little 

every day,

wondering,

if the quiet will be enough

for the universe to read my mind,

if the unruly gestures can make up

for the absence of syllables and sounds 

that scream of emotions vicious and kind,

if the deafening stillness I carry,

can ever bind a part of you, to me.