Bleeding Ink
I write poetry and bleed ink instead of tears
Crying never carves the truth with the same skill
As a pen held in shaky hands.
Paper listens better than people
It does not interrupt
It does not flinch.
Paper does not hug me or make me cry
It does not judge
It does not say it could not have been that bad
Or you would have left sooner
Paper does not say
It could have been worse.
Ink says everything that I cannot speak aloud
It holds the weight of what was unsaid
Ink spills what my voice cannot say
The truth.
Ink needs no permission
It does not need to be believed
It does not soften
Ink stains
Permanent
It stays
It Speaks
Ink is my voice
My strength
Ink is survival written in script
That shakes but does not stop.
Writing is the only way I know
To make the pain have meaning
Writing is the only way
To make me feel something
Beyond what was done to me
Writing says all I have endured
It says yes this happened
Writing says yes I am still here
It reinforces I am not crazy
So I will keep writing
Not always to be heard
Not always to be shared
The paper and Ink keep me whole
Make me visible
Because if I don’t write
The silence wins
And I have survived too much
To let silence be my legacy
Some truths cannot be spoken yet
The pain is too real
They burn the throat
So I write them down and call it poetry.
