The Talker

I am silence.

I do not speak out of place or

line. I don’t exist out of place or

time. I have no meaning, no starting to

life. I’m at the end of the line, I’m silent for

rage is a theme of my time. The very thought

that I care what you did at school today, or what

your children’s names are, or what Capote novel you

read last week - makes me violent inside. If I did not ask

you a direct question, I don’t care for your life makes me feel

sick. For you are the rage of human interaction. You are the basic

non-listener of pro-action. You are the PR of “let’s make this work out”

but for those of us who are at the end of the line, you make sure you haven’t

got the time. For you sit and you smile, your hands folded neatly to say “I am rage”

and aggression seeps from each of your fingertips. You are the rage, the plague of human

interaction and each step of you is waiting for your turn to speak. And so you listen

to us. Our woes and worries may just about be the answer to your job, so you

can scoff and scrutinise our behaviour. But maybe we are the ones living in

reality for the fact that so many of us feel this way that they have written

your textbook about me. You are still the rage, the plague of human

interaction. You wait for your turn to speak, pretend you listened

to me. But instead of any information, you give me the end the

nothing. The textbook comment from the wrong book written

by the wrong person, over one hundred years ago. Your

time is up and now I have to go. And so, I walk out of

your rage and into the open air of non-interaction

where nobody acknowledges my existence and

nobody talks to me. But you believe that there

is something wrong with me. And you believe

that I cannot exist like this for long. That one

thing will come along and I will want to end

me. But this heartbeat, this heart race, this

boiling blood inside of me. It is there for

the sake of your textbook, for the sake

of your impression of me. The me you

couldn’t understand because you

only got a “C” in the exam. The

personality you didn’t take a

class in, so you don’t know

the answer. But there’s no

need because I know me

and you don’t. Your

textbook you

thought was

written for

me was

not. As

I am silence