Too Quiet For Words

It’s that place where you’ve been sent for being naughty,
where teachers permanently moan,
where knives squeal against metal,
where morning fights with father become ritual,
where everyone blames you –
the place where you do monumentally stupid things
without knowing why or meaning to,
where unsaid words shout at you
for being quiet, for being clumsy.

Here you’re an interactive exhibit,
a cling-wrapped model vandalised by youths
with a psychotic sense of the macabre.

Here you’re fear-frozen before a gang of hyperactive primary school children
wielding blades, unsupervised and overdosed
on cartoon violence and Christmas parties.

If you look around, you’ll find a confessional in which
an earnest young man confesses sordid sins, while,
behind the curtain, an obese monstrosity masturbates,
jerking with sick pleasure at the sound of each transgression.
Listen carefully to the sound: it will become your music.

Here,
in this silence, this place you’ve been sent for being naughty,
where the words I’m sorry have been trampled
by reasons not to worry, and they in turn,
drowned by the deafening moans of inevitable victims -
here, this silence, if left intact, will gorge itself on insecurities,
will fester with the rest of the ghouls.

You watch him packing his bags,
watch him trying not to catch your eye,
watch his silence bulge with gift-wrapped poignancy –
watch him, knowing a few words from you
will make him stay,
will make the demons go away.
You keep quiet.

If you think your silence will save you,
listen for the goblins whispering welcome,
hear their slobbering infesting the stillness.

Email: Alan David Pritchard

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