When Your Voice Is Too Loud

Words clamber over each other,
slithering out of the pen into
wretched lines of infestation
on a clean white page.

Light drips out the windows
and slides down brick walls into
puddles on the cement below,
weaving in and out
between hopelessly tall bars.

An airy stream of warmth
wraps this forgotten corner
like a thin coat, offering little protection
from dark, pervasive winter.

Flames embrace the crumpled pages,
which curl as if to hold themselves together
against the persistent fingers peeling them apart
into separate sheets of graying ash.
Words burn into silence.