Silent Screams

In the void between each passing glance,
Anguished screams lacerate the air —
Howls that none can hear, none will chance
To witness the tempests raging there.

For outwardly all seems serene, each mask
Upheld with consummate feigned delight.
Inwardly, turmoil too profane to ask
Rends the soul in profligate blight.

“You seem perfectly fine,” the words ring hollow,
Cold comforts hurled from peripheries dim.
For how could bright smiles and greetings follow
The haunted paths where only I have been?

In the muffled chambers of my haunted mind,
Silence births the most torturous gales —
Raw agonies with no release to find,
Unable to draft on compassion’s balmy sails.

Here, muted by societal mores and fears,
My truth lies strangled beneath gilded guise.
Forever at odds with the roles of the years
And the masks that conceal my naked cries.

Oh, to shatter this shell and unleash the storm
That churns in perpetual darkness within!
Let the world recoil as my plights take form,
Bared in their harrowing, visceral din.