They’re just there.
For as long as I remember their low murmur has been there in the deep parts of my mind, trickling down the back of my throat so that I can’t quite taste them.
My hands know what my tongue can’t reach. They learned to form the letters like a printing press so that all of that loose leaf poetry could be served up from the ever-moving depths of my imagination.
Too often I have surfaced with a start to realise that the hour has been passed in intense silence. I had roamed so far and wide within the walls of this loud mind that I had not noticed the outer quiet.
Heartfelt quotes and snippets of conversation between people not yet invented line themselves up on my shelves to be examined and stored away. They just appear, these words, through my window in the morning, rising like mist from the water’s edge, by my side as I walk. They’re there wherever I go.
The words, the words, they keep me company but they cannot stay. They clamour for my attention and approval and leave me with a loud, unresting mind.
Though I write and write, I cannot rid myself of them. More and more gather like constellations lighting up the space behind my eyes until it grows so bright that I cannot sleep.
When God knit me together in my mother’s womb, he filled me full with words. I believe it is a gift but sometimes I longer for something a little quieter.