Dear silence,

You are a cocoon of safety

Back of the classroom buddy,

Providing a warm blanket of anonymity

 

For no one can remember your name,

If you never bother to say it

Days are filled with crashing waves of noise

That break along your eroded rocks

Unwanted questions and unwelcome greetings

Die away as I slip along your shores

 

Silence, my constant companion

As you fill the space otherwise left empty

Throughout my life, left alone by my peers

You were there, through book-filled lunches

And recesses spent on the sidelines

My only response to endless taunts

 

Filling the time between late night sobs,

As their insults ring through my head

 

A refuge from the screaming fights

Full of hope that, for once,

My car trip will be empty of the tension

That my parents' arguments bring

 

There are those who call you nothing,

Who say that you are just a lack of sound

 

But you are a friend to the anxious

A haven to the weary

A temple to the focused

And a home to me