Speechless

I don’t have words to articulate

Seems language holds me a slave

Refusing to let me formulate

Expressions to explain this need

As necessary as the air I breathe

This emptiness that leaves me bereft

Hollow inside, a victim of theft

Forcing me to battle against my will

Seeking to satiate a thirst I cannot fill

A hunger I can’t explain

A void - empty - yet filled with pain

And though I try to express

To confess

It seems that more is less

For no matter the number of words I juggle

None can pinpoint my inner struggle

‘Cause though as a child this gift they gave

The gift of language now holds me a slave

A thousand words compose my vocabulary

Only a few prove to be explanatory

For if masters can’t find words to describe

The One who created and gave us all life

How then should I even begin to detail

The deep, desperate longing that my soul assails

I open my mouth to verbalize

But the words escape me, far as the skies

I mutter, stutter, grumble, groan

Yet nothing about my true condition is shown

I retreat again to solitude with a moan

Can I be released from this misery

If I can’t communicate the dilemma in me

If I fail to say that my beast is a savage

That deep inside me the sins ravage

Leaving behind untold quantities of damage

I’ll forever be buried in anguish

A permanent slave to language

Sometimes the pain brings me to my knees

So intense I feel I can’t breathe

Yet try as I might

To convey my plight

None of the words I try seem right

The heaviness rest on my chest

It wears on my spirit leaving me depressed

So many words to choose from

And still the right ones won’t come

The chains of speech always seem to be

Binding, hindering, holding me

From this slave trade of language will I ever be free

We constantly pass words from one to another

Forgetting once spoken, the words we can never recover

They’re removed from our possession forever

There is one way to escape this prison

A form of communication far beyond this dimension

Even though I’ll try

I’m sure I can’t describe

The extreme satisfaction

Of this form of expression

The only way that we can transcend

The limits of words spoken

Is to truly enter a place

Not available to the entire human race

Sometimes accessed by lying on your face

Or maybe by bended knees

It is from a position of humility

That I find I can finally be free

No longer can language hold me bound

I can defeat it without a single sound

For just a few moments I can escape

As a conversation inside begins to take shape

With strange utterings I can speak to my savior

And if you’re watching pardon my strange behavior

For I take no thought of how I might appear

I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure He hears

Only in this way can I speak freely

Can I fully divulge the depth of my need.

And for a moment from the chains of language

I can be free.