Held In Silence Only.........................19

With people, I'm thick, struck dumb, numb
as a tree; uneasy.
When they shoot the breeze,
I wish I could take my leave.

But print is different:
through pulped wood of a page
I can listen with a look
to lives and conversations
safely sealed in
my silence.
I'd mark the chapters of my life
with with others' I'd read.

But the internet is different again.
a living book
from which
words like birds
fly to through the window
telling of thoughts and places
I've never been,
turning over new leaves
in my mind
sharing their lives with me.

Then you began to write...
Wanted to meet.

I wonder, if it had been
face to face first,
instead of screen to screen,
what we'd have seen?
I'd have been my usual wooden self,
bored you rigiid, probably -
but this way,
which other people think so frightening,
seemed to me
a smaller step than answering the phone,
as if I went to meet
my favourite character from a book
I knew inside,
would now know out;
I didn't think,
at the time,
you might change
my character,

so I agreed.

As you are a townie
I'd have to catch a distant train of thought
to reach where you wanted me to be.

But though you met me at the station
your eyes
were obscured
by a burning tree
struck by lightning.

In your house
I was safe when you
smoked cigarettes,
your mouth wordless,
drawing fire
away from me.

If it could have been enough
just to explore your realness with my hands
as I had your emails with my mind,
use my tongue only
in silence:
then you would have felt
what I felt:
trust.

But the silence
I thought safe
went felt cold about me with you,
like a Winter storm
I remembered from long ago

but the leaves fell then
might yet regrow

though silence
holds me alone
I hold my breath
that we'll end friends