Words, Like Weeds

Words, Like Weeds

They overrun the quiet lots of speech,

Mouth, throat overrun with wild spawn.

Wanting to be plucked and dried to silence,

These unruly guests in my house of bone.

Pressed under the weight of simple pages,

Stuffed into the gaping maws of envelopes—

Sent out to strangers who may never read them,

My home now stuffed with the unsaid.

Words piling up in drawers and dark corners,

The closets and cabinets vomiting verbiage.

"Peddle them," friends urge, "trade them,"

Pulverize and brew them into potent potions.

"Smoke them for visions," they say,

But no, a hemlock brew is not for me.

Fear of the agents kicking down the door

For planting this lush, contraband garden.

This wild harvest is too much to contain.

A drought is needed, a purging fast

To sift through the excess, save the essence

For future seasons when the tongue is parched.