Fistfuls of Silence

Nobody listens when you talk.  Nobody listens when I don't talk is the problem.  Nobody listens to the things I'm trying to hear, the sounds their own words make, their stories uninterrupted by queries their abrupt disruptures by my silent response.  Nobody listens when I don't talk.  Nobody lets me listen thus to them.  I like the ways that I hear silently my thoughts less curdled when there is no need for words.  For gestures even, for the facial pantomime of interchange.  Nobody listens when I don't talk to share the hearing of things I'm silent for.  Nobody listens when I don't talk about my parents: my mother; the ogre.  Nobody listens when I don't talk about the pills.  Nobody listens to my undrugged silences.  Nobody listens to the keywords I know not to say My stories, my language, obtuse abstractions.  Nobody listens to the directness the unconvoluted.  Nobody listens to the things I have not to say.