The Ache in the Silence

The Ache Between What Was and What Remains

The Ache in the Silence,

Hidden in the meaning between words,

In an embrace half felt,

Half held,

Fleeting.

Each look a loss,

Brown eyes emptied of adoration,

Each glance a goodbye,

For the final time?

Breathed through brokenness.

Like a sailor saying farewell to a family, they’ll never see again,

An immigrant leaving parents,

For A promised better life,

On distant shore’s horizon.

There is a pause, A place in the intervening stillness.

A wife saying,

You never loved me,

Even when love’s evidence has never waned,

Nor lost strength in the fading light,

Stillness like a mausoleum as too much is left unsaid.

Judgement cast as villain’s role assigned,

Victim and victor,

Villain and Saint,

Roles ascribed in layered silence that sighs,

Left adrift on waters foreign and fading,

The Calm before the calamity, that cries.

The Ache in the silence,

Etched and engraved upon sufferings selective storage,

Wounds left by words, the weaponized verbs,

Liar, betrayer, destroyer of dreams.

These titles weigh upon my shoulders like living death

The ache persists,

Amidst the Silence,

The emptiness heralding,

Futures hope of filled cavity verifying,

The fullness will engulf the emptiness.

This poem is part of the upcoming collection
The Echo in the Silence
by Eiri Waters
A body of sacred lament, spiritual ache, and whispered survival.
Coming soon.

Explore more from the author:
amazon.com/author/eiriwaters