When the Voices
Go Quiet

I often wonder: what if the voices stopped
and everything went silent?

Would I go mad
and turn violent?

Would the lack of sound disturb me so completely
that my feet left the ground,
that I floated toward heaven and its cold stars,
treading the long rivers of my own scars?

Would the old pathways of innocence
still remember the way to a mind gone dark?

Would the heartache slip away again
only so you could find it?

If every voice stopped calling
and it was only I,
would I and myself cry?

And would either of us ever answer why?