When I Fell, I was Silent

I have spent the whole of my life silent.
Lips locked together, not saying what ached inside,
Lest I disturb someone's thoughts of me...
Of who I was supposed to be.

Words tumbling about in my chest
Begging to explode, threatening to implode.
Trying not to cry but not able to shed a tear out loud.

In the darkness of night I prayed that G-d would loosen my tongue
And allow me to say that which I could never give voice.
Gradually I felt a new feeling take hold
I couldn't explain it but inside I began to change.
Little did I know...
I was growing my voice.

At times I began to speak out.
Murmurs came from my throat as I gurgled out my beginning sounds.

It wasn't enough.

I held my tongue and gave my grace.
I couldn't budge the wall that had been carefully constructed.
Not wanting to change the landscape of ME
I kept myself mute and in the power of others.

Then I fell.

My world upturned with one simple act
And I no longer knew right from wrong.
I was told the moon was blue
And the sky made of milk.
Grass was the color of a brick
And words ceased to hold meaning.

Already the fall and the landing have melded together in my mind
Not separate from each other, but both together as one.
I can not figure when I began to fall
I remember only that I once fell, and then I landed.

The ground, unyielding though it was, grew to a small mountain
That cut me as I fell
No one to guide me down
I turned my face to G-d
Unashamed of what would be thought of me
I fell to my knees in prayer

I prayed for sound.
I prayed to speak.
I prayed for help.
I prayed for strength.
I prayed when I could no longer think
And when the world ceased to exist.
When the end had come and no one was there to comfort me
The prayer began to take hold
And I felt a lifting
I could see the brightness
And I began to hear again the words and lies that were spoken,
Words that once held me down
And forced me to do their bidding.
Lies that told me what my eyes could see and what my brain could know.

...

The scream escaped my lips
As the anger and pain bubbled inside my soul
Feeling as though a thousand knives were piercing my gut
I rose to my feet as I roared
Sound bouncing off the ridges and echoing through the valley
In my time of greatest sorrow,
I had found my voice.

It was small consolation, at first,
That sound that most others knew since birth
But as the pain found its way through my vocal passages
And fell upon the ears of him who wronged me
I felt it ease...

I cried out my pain
And yelled with my face upturned
My knees bloody and my face a deep purple
I no longer knew my name,
But I knew my sound.

I spoke words that have long sat in my heart
Eating away at my soul,
Desperate for a way out
And determined to get there, no matter the means.

And at the end of it all
When my voice began to rest
Assured that it would no longer be held close
Hidden where none could see
And muffled so none could hear,
Then.
I told him thus,

In the end, always remember,
That when I fell, I was silent.