Silence is golden, it is said.
Golden when shared in comfort. Golden when you are alone, letting it gild your world. Ah, but, when used to ignore, silence is lead. A club wielded with great power...stronger than screaming harsh words. It is isolating, a declaration of control, a blanket of disdain.
I am smothered in its folds.
It's a bad spot to be in. Get out of there as quickly as you can. You can do it!
ReplyDeleteI have a friend, a good friend, now dead who once described silence as a crime.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to agree with her and with Virginia Woolf who after her mother's death, when V hinted at her older step brother's unwanted sexual advances to V as a child wrote:‘A finger seemed laid on one’s lips.’
A finger laid on lips, I say. The words echo. Their resonance has the quality of the silence imposed on women writers for centuries, not only women, but children as well, and men. All of us, in some shape or form, at some time. The finger on the lips. So many commands to remain silent.
How do we refuse to submit to the voice that says, be silent, a finger on the lips, a subtle demand that is impossible to ignore? How do we break the rules of incest, the rules of torture and abuse in all its many forms, the rules of bullying?
Maybe we write.
Thanks Quin for your evocative thoughts.
(clapping)
ReplyDeleteWell said.
Indeed! Silence is the sibling of loneliness.
ReplyDeleteThis is a poem..
ReplyDeleteI want to say I already commented here once before, but my name is not included.
ReplyDeleteI reread this. I want to say I'm so happy you graduated to big girl punctuation and capitalization--it suits you.
This perspective is such an astute observation. Cutting, bold and honest--like you.
This was so good that I think it would be maybe even MORE powerful in poem form. Awesome...
ReplyDelete