Louder

You took away my voice but I will scream

You crushed my hope but I will dream

If I can’t move then I will fight

If I can’t talk then I will write

If I can’t speak then I will read

If I can’t feel then I will bleed

Through the ink, through the brink

Until the page knows everything

Until all you see is what I think

I used to open my mouth

And nothing came out

Not because there was nothing there

But because too much was

That every word was bursting to shout

A flood trapped by clenching teeth

A storm that language couldn’t catch

So I swallowed silence like a stone

And wore quiet like a mask

I don’t hold back on the page

My lips don’t feel glued shut

No weight dragging down my tongue

No voice caught in my gut

I might shut up to be polite

But when I write, the words erupt

I don’t swallow myself whole

When its just me and the words

The ink doesn’t judge me

The lines don’t interrupt

You wanted me to disappear

But here I am

In every letter

In every rhyme till it feels better

In every word that you tried to steal from me

And I’ve never been more clear

Silence doesn’t break me

Silence is the language I had to learn

Fear did not freeze me

Fear only taught me how to burn

I will scratch syllables into the margins of the world

Press my pain into every fold

I will airstrike my story to have it told

My poems are not quiet

They rage in lowercase

Weep between commas

And scream at the hatred on your face

They shake the bones of what you did to me

And burn louder than what you’ve done

They rise from the *** you tried to leave me in

I’ll survive, I will be the living one

I’m not silenced, just louder

If you want me erased, then do it

You did not leave me voiceless

You only made me a poet