I tried to find my voice, a voice lost
In a night thickened by paranoia,
In a night crowded out by doubts
It could not articulate.
I had let go of it through negligence,
As at a carnival one lets go a child’s hand.
I rummaged through a jumble sale of bodies,
Listened to advice devoid of meaning;
My voice was like a moth, its few colours
Worn to exhaustion.
It was drunk and lost, it was battered
And flung everywhere.
I tried to find it in the beds
Of solemn girls disguised as women,
I tried to find it among the men I envied.
I searched for it among its own inventions.
I had arranged my life around that voice.
Absurdly relied on it to explain
Who and what I was, as if either mattered.
In strange towns I used it to advantage.
Whatever it could fish out from the night I accepted.
No matter; it was the one voice I let delude me.
Maybe it was getting the better of me,
Maybe it was envious and screamed at times,
Certainly it said things of which I’d grown ashamed,
But I forgave it its blindness and tantrums
Hoping it would change.
And now it is beyond change.
My mouth cannot find it.
I have lost it; and no longer wish it back.
In winter I will make a voice out of snow,
In spring I will make a voice out of flowers,
In summer and autumn I will make a voice
With what is at hand.
The complaints it carried like credentials are misplaced
And its mouthful of reasons are blown away,
And its mouthful of tragedies
Have become light as dandelion seeds.