Stifled

Have I told you?
My silence is worth gold,
Small breaths for shiny stones.

Don't give credence to my
Thoughts and fears with
An utterance,
I'd give it all for a stifle.

My hands over your mouth
My eyes speaking into yours,
Begging, pleading,
Not a whisper, not a word.

Because it's easy to say it all.
To loudly proclaim all of my evidence
With thundering echoes,
That wither away at my resolve.
My last strength weakening at every syllable.

Iambics for refrains that beat at me,
Couplets that break my legs,
Prose that collapsed me,
With a heart rhythmically thumping
At every accent and emphasis.

And there is nothing left to save me.
When all is spoken,
Your words invisibly carved into the wind
That will howl in my mind forever;
And repeat to me over and over
The day the way that I died.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby