Our Voices 
July 28th, 2014

Voice: noun, the condition or effectiveness of the voice for speaking or singing 
Verb form: to speak
Words: noun, a unit of language that functions as a principle carrier of meaning 

When we are born, 
we are taught to be seen and not heard, 
to hold our tongues and to wait to be addressed,
our voices muted and muffled. 

When we are born,
vocal chords allow us to scream,
the first sign that we are alive,
that we our conscious, 
that we are human. 
Our voices are 
undulating,  crusading enigmas that are tucked away in
unopened pockets and 
clandestine closets,
their power under developed but steadily augmenting as we 
germinate and cultivate. 
The syllables are sounded out with
rhythmic claps and baffled tongues,
the letters learned and sung with 
expanding expertise. 

We begin to sew our muted voices to empty pages,
the words rough and raw,
our voices coarse and uncut,
the graphite smears and ink blots a road map to our
spreading articulation. 

We find our voices in sequestered seams and among bruised lyrics,
on smudged pages and
text-stained surfaces. 

Our voices hide in the veins of billowing magnolia trees,
in the fissures of dorm walls and
between the pleats of our shades as morning sunbeams creep beneath
the windows’ fogged glass.

We find our voices in the pleas of kidnapped girls as
their homes shrink in cracked rearview mirrors and in
the tears of shattered families as they
watch the procession of their fallen sons and daughters whose wings
couldn’t carry them on.

Our voices hide in the oppressive silence of an empty Pakistani classroom, 
as girls sit at home,
their words censored and repressed,
and in the sobs of sinless children as they watch their family members topple like
unsequestered mountains,  
rubble and ash painting the scenes of their horrid memories. 

We heard our voices in the misted-fog of memories of 
women taking the places of their husbands and fathers,
their sons and brothers,
in factories where smoke dusted their skin and 
metal seared their shins and chins.

Our voices hide in
the desolate nights of the Hindu Kush mountains 
as soldiers lay awake, looking up at
star-studded skies, 
thinking of homes they may never see again,
dreaming of people they may never hold again,
as they fight for a country that doesn’t believe in them anymore
and who brands them as cold-blooded killers.

We heard our voices in the 
moans and jangling bones of 
starving people as their bloated bellies and emaciated bodies 
rocked with agonizing muscle pains and swaying coughs,
their bodies waning,
the light in their eyes ebbing,
their lives subsiding as ebola takes them away.

We found our voices in the way our pens pressed to paper,
pounding poetry into pages,
pushing the words out because we feared we would choke on them
if they staying in our skin too long.

We found our voices in the clasping of hands
and the snapping of fingers as
melodies washed into our ears and 
our souls caved in from the weight of the poetry. 

We found our voices,
the under-developed vocal chords flourishing and
the syllables sounded out on rhythmic tongues and
the letters plastered to our skin. 

We found out voices 
but now, what will we do with them?