Anthony Hanible

The Day I Told Them I Hear Voices  

The day I told them I hear voices

My fate split open into choices

A trembling truth 

A sharpened seam

A cracked glass echo in a dream

Their eyes went wide like breaking tides

Like doors unlatched on haunted sides

Like they were bracing for the sound  

Of something rising underground

I said they whisper when I wake

They rattle ribs

They ricochet

They rhyme in riddles

Chant in chains 

They stitch old thunder

Through my veins

They hum my fears

In looping scores

They knock like fists

On locked up doors

They drag old grief

From shadowed shelves

They speak the parts 

I hide from myself

But sometimes

Yes

I told them straight

They lift me up

They recalibrate 

They tell me I’m still built to stand

Still forged in fire

Still iron spanned

The silence after felt like stone

A frozen kingdom carved in bone

A throne of doubt

A crown of frost 

A tally of what truth had cost

Yet in that hush

My pulse grew loud  

A rebel spark beneath the shroud

A vow to rise

To stay

To fight

To weld my darkness into light

The day I told them I hear voices

I learned that fear

Rewrites its poisons 

That courage blooms

In jagged lines

That truth hits hard

But still refines

And when my name left my own tongue

It rang like steel

It burned

It sung

A voice no longer split or broken

A self rebuilt from what was spoken