It's quiet,
like a midnight dip in a public pool,
afraid of getting caught,
and maybe that's what a voice is,
a dip in the pool,
where you know you're not meant to be,
so she seals up her lips,
marked them,
so she wouldn't forget
every word
is just the beginning,
just the first sound,
or the lights coming on,
insuring you are about to get caught,
she doesn't want to get caught,
not anymore,
so her voice is the first casualty
of a war that never seemed to end
Kisa had felt
that it was better,
that it was easier,
to hide her voice,
forget to speak,
too tired of getting caught,
again and again,
lost amid the pain
of being too much for the world,
and so,
she became silent,
and yet silence
had not stopped her from getting caught,
she'd made no mistakes,
knew that silence felt a bit better
than laughter,
the kind that pours like waves
from each of her classmates' lips,
drenching her under the crushing waves,
because for them,
it was so easy,
it spilled out of them,
couldn't be contained,
but for her,
it was suffocating,
dragging her down,
leaving her underneath something
much stronger than she's ever been
so, her voice was crushed
underneath every laugh,
every wave,
and she became silent,
yet, when everything was too much,
the wave too strong,
a hand tentatively pulled her out from underneath it,
and that wouldn't make the bullying just stop,
but it did remind her that she can breathe,
that someone's gentle enough
and kind enough
to long to hear her voice for the first time,
it's as if Tohru had knelt before her broken body
and poured her own air in,
doing CPR on the girl
most probably would have left for dead
and slowly,
the weight was something she was determined
to push off of her,
suddenly,
she had help,
and someone, she wanted to let
see her get better,
and it isn't easy to begin to breathe again,
to find her voice when she'd thrown it away,
but it's worth even the struggle.