Unsaid Geography

The silence stretched, a thin, taut wire.

Across the table, no one stirred.

I bit my lip, then something higher,

that fleshy fold, a silent word.

The meeting droned. My mind just drifts.

I felt the ridges, cool and wet.

The blue-green rivers, tiny rifts,

where words are born, then un-beget.

Fluorescent hum, a buzzing drone.

My own small cave, a secret space.

Where all I wanted, left alone,

collects like spittle, out of place.

The words pressed up, a slight, dull ache.

I tasted iron, or maybe shame.

The little world I couldn't make

visible, to utter name.