A Whisper

On a gloomy day, Pamplona, Spain. Dec, 2011.

Shhh… Your whisper is too loud.

Don’t disrupt this peace.

Don’t speak.

Your words are young; they’re weak. They fall from your lips— fledglings, ambitious and too sure; they haven’t learned to fly. They could’ve soared the sky and reached higher than any other of their kind.

Don’t speak.

I cannot understand your meaning, cannot see the sense in all those sounds. Somehow, something tells me it is beautiful—that which you are saying. But instead of smiling, enjoying this piece of art, it makes me angry. I think I heard it all before. Somewhere… in party or a fancy concert hall.

Don’t speak.

Your voice is like autumn wind—confused, whether to say goodbye to Summer or greet the Winter that’s ahead. When I feel it, it shakes me, ever so slightly, but just enough to break my leaves… and then I’ll find myself standing on a golden carpet, afraid to take a step, afraid to crush those dreams.

Shhh… Don’t speak.

They are just words—so helpless. The past has gone; it’s naïve to think that you can change it. The future is not ours; it’s arrogant to think that you can have it. And the present… that’s just what is now, this very moment.

No, don’t speak.

Don’t disrupt this peace.

Just listen… can you hear it?

Can you hear that little giggle? Sounds like a child, playing in the field. She runs around in circles, her arms spread wide from side to side, to help her leave the ground and reach the worlds she built. 

Can you hear it?

There’s no one else. No one to hold her down, to force her into some other world, one that she didn’t build herself.

So tell me, can you hear it?

No, don’t answer.

Shhh… Don’t speak.

Don’t whisper.

Don’t disrupt my peace.