Speaking (?) Of Which

I haven't spoken in so long

That I barely recall how to.

You've heard me speak, you say? 

"Hello!", "gosh!", "daarrrrrlinnng, how ARE you?"

I don't blame you, I put up a convincing pantomime,

Pleasantries, intonations, sweet nothings roll off my tongue 

To some pre-rehearsed rhyme.

When you see me flash my signature smile

That shows just the right amount of teeth,

In truth, I lurk in a corner of the room,

An apparition, a shadow's distant cousin that's all but forgotten to breathe. 

My voice now is a hoarse stage-whisper,

Shivering, breaking on every second syllable,

Equal parts terrified of being heard or ignored,

As words spring to my lips - illegitimate, unbidden - and much more that I daren't label. 

My silence is rather blissful,

For me, and for those around. 

For, what do you see when you look at me, 

dear septuagenarian uncle mine? 

"Another of those whiney teenagers, all of them cut out of the same self-pity inlaid fabric.

Privileged (think they're the centre of the universe), delinquent little prick! 

In my day, they'd be dealt with differently."

You conveniently omit 

the cane or the twisting of the arm that 'differently' would encompass. 

Convenient though it may be 

The onus of throttling my voice cannot be laid 

So squarely upon shoulders older than mine. 

If drowning out my screams were a crime,

I'd be pronounced key conspirator and culprit. 

For the cacophony within me can be discordant, raucous.

I'd rather snuff it out with a pair of headphones or a ridiculously large workload

Barring the rare days when I let it manifest

As a wet pillowcase on a stormy night, a grotesque scar on my inner wrist,

A cliché-ridden tell-all poem scribbled down during the wee hours of dawn.

My therapist has a word for it - it's denial, he opines. 

An inevitable, natural defense mechanism, he calls it. 

After all, how would I survive if I began worrying

About being hit by an asteroid the next day 

Or catching an incurable flu

If not by wresting that unsavoury thought into a dusty drawer of my mind palace, 

And chucking the key right into the Phlegethon of oblivion? 

But sometimes I wonder, what am I denying myself, truly? 

The pain, or the fleeting shot at solace? 

I wouldn't know, would I? 

After all, I've only just realised

 - I haven't yet forgotten how to speak.