Speechless

 

I don’t know what to say. Words seem to leave me.

I know I have to say something, impart some kind of

Message that doesn’t want to be spoken.

Yet, my lips won’t move as my mind races.

Stuck to the ground, frozen in place, I can’t seem to speak.

People sit, waiting for something that I can’t understand

And I know that I disappoint them with each painfully silent second.

My fingers bleed from climbing up the cliffs

That separated me from this quiet crowd.

My muscles ache from  pulling myself to this spotlighted surface

But I can’t seem to say anything.

I have lived through so much:

I’ve failed, and won, and bleed, and hurt

For something that I can’t even fully fathom.

I know that my words would be strong. Those words,

Sharp as swords and quick as lightening, would make this all worth it.

I know. I believe in the words I can’t form.

I see what needs to be said, but it is as though

I feel the understanding in a foreign language

That could never be communicated.

The world around me is dark, as the light blinds me.

On my journey, I did what I had to do to reach this place.

I smiled through tears. I laughed through pain. I gave up my time.

I worked and hurt and sacrificed

For something that I felt I needed.

Now that I’m here, that I’ve reached this moment of truth

When I have been given my reward,

I don’t know what to say.

This journey has been full of adapting to others.

I have been what I needed to be.

To win the right to be here,

She became I in a desperate attempt.

I’ve spent so long denying who I am that I may have forgotten how to be me.

Thus, I try so desperately to remember a woman

that is cloaked in darkness so thick, I can not see her.

She would know what to say.

She would know what to do.

She always knew everything, before she became me.

Yet, she isn’t here now. She isn’t coming.

I’ve spent so long keeping her away, that she doesn’t around anymore.

Thus, I sweat and ache and bleed in a deafening silence

Watched by wondering, impatient eyes.

I stand there, lips frozen and eyes full

And I see that she should have been me.