You Talk Too Much

I was told "you talk too much"
When I was younger, aged 8.
But all I had talked about was
The things that interested me.

How the stars in our dark skies
Are just gigantic balls of gas.
Or the green grass at our feet
Had grown for years before us.
Or the books cradled in my arms,
Are worlds written in minds.
Hours of time aren't real at all.
Time is simply relative.

I realised all these things
Before I could word them,
And so I talked too much.
I was told that I should be quiet,
And I was talked over a lot,
I soon realised they didn't care,
So I was quiet and... observed.

I saw the way her wrist moved,
As she stroked through his hair,
The sunlight bouncing though
The fogged up glasses I wore,
Her lips curling as she said her name,
And the way she sighed at herself,
My hands grew larger with me,
Yet, my sight grew worse.

I drew what I saw, I wrote the words
That I had been told not to speak.
I ceased to talk, drew little, wrote lots,
But no one ever read my scribbling.

--

Now I am told, I am a good writer,
But you weren't meant to find it.
You asked me why I write things,
I told you it was because I didn't talk,
You told me that I talked enough,
I tried to tell you what I meant,
But the words got stuck, got lost.

I took up a pen in hand and scrawled,
Messy handwriting on clean paper,
What I meant when I said I didn't talk,
Was that I didn't say those things,
About the stars and grass and time,
Or the sunlight and her wrists,
Because people had said I talked too much.

You took the paper from me and read it
Out loud. In the open. Your voice.
So I could hear my words on your tongue,
They were sweeter than I could imagine,
More worldly than I thought I could sound,
Maybe that was the taint of your accent.

Either way, I didn't like it. It no longer sounded
Like the voice of my eight year old self.