Reclamation

After I went to the museum this week during my externship in Chattanooga, I felt extremely inspired to write. I woke up that night several times to write down lines or images or just to scribble out a thought that had come to me while I was sleeping.  Though my body was tired, my mind continued to work. The subject of all I wrote that day was silence.

Silence makes some people uncomfortable. Sometimes in the silence we are forced to face ourselves and sometimes we don’t like what we see. This is why some people cannot stand to be alone. In the silence of a no-relationship, they are forced to keep company with themselves and some people can’t handle that.  There are also their silences where we are left wondering what another person is thinking. Like when we’re in the middle of an argument and suddenly the other person becomes silent. And then there are those silences that some people use to make a loved one pay for some wrong done to them. A man refuses to speak to his girlfriend as a tool of revenge because she did something he didn’t like or vice versa. The point is: silence comes in many forms.

I think back to the painting I saw at the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga: Tom Wesslemann’s Monica With Tulips. The subject of the painting is the objectification of women. How women’s bodies are valued more than any other part of them. And I think of the silence surrounding the subject. Does the silence mean the objectification of women is okay?

Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes silence is very much needed because silence can be a time to renew and become rejuvenated. During that silence, it’s important to listen. Just listen. Pay attention to the small things. Because, in the end, that will be the things that matter. Anyway, maybe I’m rambling here, but I just wanted to share the poems that were composed from my throughout the night writing episodes:

Silence

Silence. She used it

like she used him, often

and in exchange for things.

Reclamation of Silence

Silence reclaimed them, received

their hearts. And that’s where

they were finally able to be free.

Their souls, soft as their trampled

hearts and smiles often traded

for warm bodies, finally found refuge

in the silence that enveloped them

as they fell toward each other.

For once, a façade of love began

to crumble and no longer were their

souls moving quickly toward a place

where lonely hearts and empty beds

become trading grounds for empty

feelings and the determination to

keep crumbling walls from

finally falling.

Peace & Love,

Rosalind