Love is a language of laughter and tears
But the most telling moments are ones of silence
We have built this house
Where love reverberates of walls
And this isn’t sound
The squeek of the door
The creaks in the floor
The pitch. The mood
We’ve tuned each other out
every story has been told
once melodic yarn spun across bedroom floors
like sunsets on desert horizons
like red wine on breath
like new velvet yielding to my fingers
now just drone on
at one time the tenor in my voice held you
Now you wish I would hold my tongue
Sucked Teeth
Tapping fingers
The drum major in a war of words
the frustration is audible, so we change the play
Lost in translation
Not worth the frustration
There are no words for what I’m saying to you
Hush now
Not what but how
In my silence I have no choice but to be true
Your laugh brings color to white noise
Your accent flavors my morning
Your silhoutte leaves me dumbstruck
Heart valves as metronome
Our minor disagreements show the beauty in dissonance
Our bedsheets soak in the echo of last nights love making
As you say my name in your own time signature
Struck a major chord
When the cacophony of life perferates ear drums
Leaving sky lines bleek
the air blanketed in rotted dreams
like raw nuckles on granite
the rhythm of your words is the percussion
that gets me back on beat
the perspective that brings my world back to scale
the conflict that resolves into harmony
in this duet, we pluck heart strings
until we hear
nothing
Lost in translation
Not worth the frustration
There are no words for what I’m saying to you
Hush now
Not what but how
In my silence I have no choice but to be true]
Bomani Armah is The Watermelon Man 