The Quietest Room

I wrote it out. I read it twice.

I thought about my job, my visa,

the way a sentence looks in print

beside a photograph of me.

Then I softened it a little.

Then a little more than that.

Then I saved it as a draft

and I have never opened it again.

Nobody knocked. Nobody warned me.

That's the efficiency of it —

The quietest room! (the quietest room!)

Is the one that's watched, not locked.

The quietest room! (the quietest room!)

You'll do the censoring yourself.

No one ever had to stop me.

I stopped me. I stopped me.

The quietest room. (the quietest room)

Multiply that by a country.

Every dinner table softened.

Every group of friends adjusting

what they'll say in front of who.

No arrests required whatsoever.

No lists, no vans, no doors —

just a general understanding

that somebody might be reading.

And that's enough. That's always been enough.

The maybe does the work —

The quietest room! (the quietest room!)

Is the one where nothing happened.

The quietest room! (the quietest room!)

Where the argument stayed inside.

Nobody ever had to stop us.

We stopped us. We stopped us.

The quietest room. (the quietest room)

And I don't know what I think anymore.

I only know what I'd say out loud,

and I don't know which is which,

and I don't know when that happened.

THE QUIETEST ROOM! (the quietest room!)

SO SAY IT AT THE TABLE!

SAY IT WHERE IT COSTS YOU SOMETHING!

BADLY, SHAKING, SAY IT ANYWAY!

The quietest room. (the quietest room)

A hundred people speaking clumsily

is louder than a law.

Open your mouth.