The Master of Silence

Did you ever weep so hard that the snot ran from your nose, mixing with tears before it seeped passed your lips into your mouth? Did your heart ever break in such a way that every day after, you knew it survived only within a spindly thicket?

Did you ever want to leave a field and walk to the horizon, knowing you would never make it there? Did you ever sit in a storm and feel so splattered with sodden clay that your arms couldn’t move? Did you ever want to ride a wild wind to somewhere, just to be alone with the emptiness of a life that would never recover its beauty?

Did you?

Did you ever want to go to that place where the whistling of death seemed more comfortable than the music of life? Did you ever feel so detached and afraid that just the simple act of bringing back a memory brought to life the quivering of a ghost?

Did you ever feel that you wanted to grab the next person by the throat that smiled reassuringly, and told you time heals? Did you ever think of paradise with a grimace on your face?

Did you?

Did you ever feel so afraid that your eyes flamed, cheeks hollowed, blood sang, bones honed brittle, tears contained blood and trickled thickly, and your breast quivered heartbreak?

Did you ever have a child come to you and make you understand that there is no pain greater than that of a child left without a mother?

Grief, then, is the master of silence.