What I Could Say

What I Could Say

My family is widespread and diverse

And so they will come to stay with us.

They love to see our nice, cozy home

And see my nice, cozy room.

But lately, they have started questioning my ways

Or maybe that’s just in my mind.

They ask me why I whisper things

That no one else can hear

I could tell them I can hear myself

And sometimes I am the only one that understands

That truly knows how I get through my day

Amid chaos and disaster,

But all I say is ‘I’m just thinking’.

So they ask me why I save

An old, blue, broken pot

I could tell them it holds memories

The ones I love a lot

The ones that I so cherish

Great mixes of sorrow and joy

The ones I cannot let go

But all I say is ‘I’m a packrat’.

They ask me why I will not hear

A single vulgar word

I could say I feel this world needs no more

Of hate and hurtful acts

Things that make a beautiful mind

Turn crude and evil in the turn of an eye

But all I say is ‘I just don’t like it.”

They ask me why my eyes are red

And I can’t speak a thing.

I could say I cry at night

Because I think my dog is about to die,

I could say I cry because my happiest moments in life

Have drifted off into the past,

I could say I wish that my life has a point

In the steady destruction of my Earth

All these things that I could say

I wish I could let them escape my tongue

Let it fly through their ears

Let them finally know what tears at my soul

What strangles every breath I release

What tempts me to close my eyes and never let them open

But all I say is ‘I have allergies’.

My family comes and goes

But my responses never change

And all the things that I could say

Still stay the same.