Walled-out

You speak in a twisted tongue,

Reeking of lost patience and effortlessly ‘won’ arguments

Your words form themselves,

Plump and juicy, ripening

with the comfort of knowing you are

not outnumbered

       overlooked

          unheard

I watch,

ever the outsider,

straining my foolish little eyes

to trace the curvature of your practiced tongue,

so accustomed it, to being seen.

But the contours, the contortions

drown any meaning that I was meant to mop up from my careful inspection.

Forgive me for greeting your carefully moderated cadence with crass confusion.

I know not what it may connote;

I am constricted by my misplaced curiosity.

The words flowing out from the depths of your painted smile

string themselves a success story,

a house with a picket fence,

three children, and a dog.

They waltz across the starlit room

Spinning in graceful circles

‘round and round

my flaccid, faulty tongue

as it trips over itself, toddler-like.

But they don’t make it to my unhearing ears.

I have a nose and you do too;

Hair, eyes, mouth- I check them off one-by-one on my fingers

We are not really that different.

Are we?

But,

This wall

This wall of silence

between you and I,

Where all your beautiful words make a mockery of my muteness,

Makes all the difference.