Conversation with my mother (not)

Broken Dolls. Drawing by the author.

(Blood and Feathers…)

SHUT UP!

Shut up. Stop the teachers voice.

I can’t speak…

SHUT UP — or I’ll throw the phone down.

I can’t make my throat work. No speak. No sound.

Will you please SHUT UP?

Mute, conversations are always one-sided now.

Retire into a cocoon of over-think to think things over. And over. Again.

Thoughts — questions with no answers -

Shut up -

Stop asking stuff. Stop making me think and remember things I don’t want to. I remain fixed with my version — who do you think you are?

Someone who needs an explanation for one.

SILENCE

The blood has dried. The feathers scratch.

Picking up the shards of glass, I hum, diddly pom, to myself. Diddly pom — and the hum vibrates round my skull like a swarm -

My friends, the bees.

Connecting with the swelling sound that fills my head, clears my thoughts -

diddly pom.

You — vicious with your hate mouth telling me to shut up you old witch — casting charms to mute me — NO.

I will not shut up.

Gagged for the moment, I will hum back — me and the bees — carcophanous.

Tiny bird — light as a bee in my palm.

Flap soft still, will not make the spring sound again with an open throat in the glorious green.

Silenced now.