Love Me Quieter

There is something in the forest that does not breathe like the wind,

that does not drift like the moths or murmur like the roots beneath the moss,

and I know because I have walked with silence in my pocket,

have heard the twig snap not by accident but by invitation,

the click of a gun in the dark not wielded for need but for want.

He watches with the hunger of the forgotten,

his eyes like damp soil too long left untouched,

and when I run, it is not with fear but with regret,

because I should have spoken sooner, should have let the pain spill out

like candle wax on parchment, should have shouted instead of sighing

when the world bruised me slowly and no one looked.

Now I walk under stars I can barely see,

with footsteps not my own falling too close behind,

and the trees do not speak in riddles tonight

but in prayers of cracked bark and bitter resin,

as if they too once knew what it was to wait too long,

to love too quietly,

to be hunted for the sin

of noticing too much.