I won't speak

My silence has a reason.
Why must I talk?
You hear the words I say and
make them who I am
You want to know
what I do -

when I had nothing to do
nothing was the state I chose.
amidst self-promoting lunches
and people with a purpose
I stayed silent
friends struggling to explain
me to the world,
my lack of industry
condemning me to an unsaid derision
a non-involvementa distance
skipping by

So time slips out of my hand
So evenings make me cranky for company
I will be silent.
You want the smugness of industry
A sum of achievements I parrot
am I?

I create
I convince myself I create
I doodle, I daydream, I feel
I sing, I smile, I love
This is my purpose

I am not until you see me
yellow post-its flagging

lawyer/researcher/feminist/poet

I ball my fists round who I was
who can I become?
I grab or do they cling?
identities we play with
dog-eared dog-clenched

My time was mine - not
productive for the world
still I asked endlessly
who is Me?

three months out of a job
so the money runs out
and so does bravado

We skip words till they don't even rumble

And now I work everyday
Mon to Fri, 9.30 to 5.30
Let the words vanish up a vacuum,
a mediocrity of everydays
lost for words, lost for conversations
the talk not me, or all me

The itch still there
I lie down and it wants a little scratch
something crawling all over my brain
sometimes I ball it in my fist
and crush it in a shape to fit a size
a fistful of rice, a fistful of flour
eat and clean and make love

and sometimes I write.