The silence was deafening. A Poem by Grace Vanderzande
Surrounded by trees, she sat.
The trees would provide what she needed.
They could finally hold the real world at bay.
Good news for the girl who could never stop the noise in her head.
Noises that had always been there.
Thoughts of days gone by rumbled through her mind.
Like the banging, clanging roller coaster rolling over its tracks at the county fair.
She used to stand too close.
She hoped that the loud roller coaster would muffle or drown out.
To replace the constant screams in her head.
There seemed to be no escape from them.
She never understood if they were real or something she had imagined.
Her thoughts constantly clamoured to be heard and acknowledged.
She tried to drown them out by surrounding herself with a variety of louder noises.
Unbearable noises that others would avoid at all costs.
Pounding music exploded from speakers that damaged her eardrums and had others run.
Run, from a room where she had isolated herself for hours, for days, and sadly, for years.
The clamouring thoughts that needed to be heard became louder and louder as time went by.
Fear had those thoughts trapped like a caged lion, who roared.
Paced back and forth in wait.
Waiting for the right time. The right opportunity.
Patience, she told herself.
Their day would come.
Those thoughts leeched out.
Much like the sap from the wounded and bleeding cedar tree, she leaned against.
She reached out.
It stuck to her hands like those noises that stuck to her memories.
Time had her doubt her confidence in the noises that needed to be heard.
That needed to be said.
For years, she had tried to bury them deep.
First, they whispered, then they shouted, and finally they screamed.
“Let me go.”
She finally listened and let them go.
The whispers, the shouts, and the screams, one by one. were acknowledged.
They escaped to wherever they needed to go.
Surrounded by the trees, she sat.
The silence was deafening.
Grace Vanderzande