SILENCE OF  THE GRAVEYARDS

Still as silence. No, even more still.

The type of silence which stops thoughts,

slows strides, numbs feelings.

The type of silence which is deviously manipulating, deliberately disorienting.

The type of silence which creates fear and

a sense of impatience.

And yet one cannot escape it.

The silence of the graveyards is all of them,

and so much more.

And yet it fascinates, attracts, and heals.

It speaks to that piece of your heart whose voice has been ignored time and again,

whose hurt has been overlooked

day after day,

whose scars are still fresh after all those years

of outings and intoxication.

It triggers those memories which are more

or less forgotten but have never really left you, just like your shadow.

The silence knows all that you have been trying to deny,

all that you have kept hidden in that

box of sadness.

And that, I believe, is precisely why it both attracts and repels.

You know that it knows and that is why

it is comforting.

To know that someone as absurd as silence

has heard all the thoughts which never could have become words.

The graveyards have seen what no other place has the luxury of seeing.

No, it's not the vulnerabilities, the grief, 

the tears, the apologies or the regrets.

It is redemption.

The redemption of the body, of the soul,

of the world of thoughts.

It is both the melancholy and the furious

determination in the eyes of someone who has lost a loved one.

Most of all, it is the change.

The graveyards have had the luxury to witness people change.

In disintegration, empowerment or

simple indifference.

Arrogance turning to humility,

the innocent turning into savages,

the patient ones spitting at the graves,

the fools beginning to listen,

the mature going berserk,

the immature going silent,

the wives ageing in an instant,

the husbands spending hours at the grave trying to make sense of what happened,

the sons, the daughters, the aunts, the uncles, the friends, the strangers, all going through

a transformation which can neither be recognised nor be named.

It has no beginning, no end.

It comes for a few moments, like a shooting star,

and alters the life of a person beyond

all that we know and all that we don't.

And despite being a live audience to all this drama and commotion of human lives,

the graveyards stay silent.

They stay silent and offer comfort.

They smile and embrace.

They soothe and heal.

They understand.

You, your crap, your demons, all of it.

The silence of the graveyards.

I will never be able to comprehend it but

I will always keep listening to it.