Silens by Louise Mather

A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: Silens. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.

I'd stopped

              gone back

                          to where I always was

This home of no sky, cracked bottles, pain
 
           in just the right places

                      except

                                     I lived

& the world turned gold moons, sinew,
shimmered doves & darkness was both
static and changing

Pain churned as death, humming body,
hollowed out desolation, I lived through,
decay in clumps, clusters, wasps on cold
floors, numbness, sharp jaw, insides
ripped, unclean surfaces, skin, breath,
enough blood to drown the leopards,
vomiting their names, violence towards
myself, too many times to count or more
than the rest, those days, so many, or that
one hour that took away the light, oh
silence, sometimes you are not sweet, not
mountain air, not the slow ripple of water,
sometimes you are worse than anything
else

---

About the author:
Louise Mather is a writer from Northern England and founding editor of Acropolis Journal. A finalist in the Streetcake Poetry Prize, her work is published in various print and online literary journals including The North, Acumen, Fly on the Wall Press, Dust Poetry Magazine, Cape and Ink, Sweat and Tears. Her debut pamphlet ‘The Dredging of Rituals’ was published in 2021. She writes about ancestry, rituals, endometriosis, fatigue and mental health. Twitter @lm2020uk IG: louise.mather.uk