FanStory.com - Silent Voices by Jessica Wheeler

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"Silent Voices"

Prologue
She Lives

By Jessica Wheeler

She lives
in the realm between truth
and desire,
where merging muses
run like rivers.
A breath of fresh
expression.

She opens her home
to inspiration.

She is
a melodic impulse,
with moods that sway
and swing.
Soaring in sunlit skies,
diving into the depths
of dark nights.

She breaks and mends
the hearts in her hand

She moves
in rhythmic descent.
A gentle touch
that thrives
in passion embodied.
Weaving her way
through worlds of words,
released to capture.

She stitches the wounds
she inflicts.

She is
the bearer
of unborn brilliance,
the mother
of preconceived craft,
the work of lyrical art
emerging
in the glimmer of dawn.

A masterpiece
draped in golden light.

She is mine.

My soul,
my spirit spilled.
The trailing ink
of my confessions.
She is the escape
and the light
that guides me home.

The rising voice
from deep within,
speaking my unspoken.

She is the secret
she tells.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

A collection of poetry that brings life to the lifeless.

Chapter 1
I Will Burn

By Jessica Wheeler

I am destruction.
The fervor of my heated temper

wreaks havoc upon ignition.

I was sparked
and left ablaze to drift
without guidance.
All I know
is to burn.

If you start me,
I will stop you.

I forsake the very Earth

that feeds me,
devouring its offerings.
I scatter my pollution into the air

that gives me life
Betraying my generous kin;
The reason I sustain.

If you trust me,
I will fail you.

I reach the peak of heat
to call you from its threshold,
with a promise of intensity
in my seductive glow.
My tumultuous flames
all but whisper in your ear,
as if I long to be put out.

If you want me,
I will have you.

Enticed by my ability

to purify,
you will want to tame me.

But I will suffocate

if confined.
And my fury will spread
with each attempt to restrain.
Playing with me,
will provoke retaliation.

If you touch me,
I will hurt you.

Though sincere

are my moments of warmth.

The fireplace

on cold, winter nights.

The honest crackle

of a campfire.

A warm, seared meal

and its candlelit ambiance.

But, imbalanced are my efforts,

told in the ash that trails behind me.

I will not cease to consume

all that lies in my path.

Melting metal and flesh,

filling chimneys and lungs.

In my solitary quest

for more.

If you get too close,

I will burn you.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.
Fire

Chapter 2
Meddling Brook

By Jessica Wheeler

Snaking through the rift,
babbling Brook
divides the landscape.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

Chapter 3
Hands of Mine

By Jessica Wheeler

I am the fleeting breath,
between your birth and death,
residing just behind your numbered days.

The echoes of your past,
I grant what cannot last.
And there's no telling me to change my ways.

No span within my frame,
shall measure just the same,
though myths about my essence have deceived.
I won't stand still or fly,
but only pass you by,
I move as swiftly as I am perceived.

I'm here to share it all,
each rise and every fall,
But I can't hint to who I'll drown or save.
My currents, fast and slow,
a force within my flow,
the peril known, yet you must ride the wave.

And though I cannot stay,
it grieves me to this day,
that on my hands, too many choose to dwell.
Beyond my firm commands,
the choice rests in your hands,
to seize our moments shared and spend me well.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

I've fallen a bit behind on my chapters due to limited time. Currently, we're vacationing in Disney World, and the girls are in their glory! I promise to get caught up next week. Xoxo

Chapter 4
Resilience

By Jessica Wheeler

I remember when
I clinked in celebration.
Once whole,
before I crashed
upon the jagged rocks.

Now broken,
bathed in waves,
my sharpness soothed
and smoothed by salt.
I tumble to the shore,
a shard, discarded.

Cradled by the tides,
stroked by fingers
of the frothy sea,
erasing jagged edges.

And I...

have been made patient;
made resilient.

Each storm
teaches a lesson
as I am carried
to the sand.
A fragment,
not forgotten,
but softened
by the brine.

And I endure.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

Chapter 5
Unfinished

By Jessica Wheeler

Sunlight spills
onto the hardwood,
seeping through a crack
of the hallway’s last door.

Steps echoing heartbeats,
click, click; click, click,
building to a crescendo
like coming thunder.

A hesitant nudge
spreads the door's gap,
releasing an ominous creak
with a surge of sun.

A thick silence
swallows the sound,
and the purple-walled room
smells of cucumber melon.

A gray sweater
hangs on a swivel chair,
resting lifeless beside
an unmade bed.

A dried palette
hardens on the desk,
a brush paused mid-stroke
on an interrupted painting.

Shadows stretch long
against the weeping walls,
longing to wear
the half-painted canvas.

light fades to the sunset,
and the room exhales,
mourning the color
of a life left unfinished.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

Chapter 6
Nothing But Me

By Jessica Wheeler

I am the constant, quiet voice
that's up to you to speak.
The obvious and hidden choice
behind all that you seek.

When shadows weave their sly deceit,
from me, you cannot hide.
I strive to mend what's incomplete,
with honest grace, I guide.

I am the whisper, soft yet clear,
the one to set you free.
At times I may be hard to hear,
yet you can count on me.

Though fabrications may persist,
to bend me at their will,
I stand unchanged, for I exist,
impossible to kill.

A lie will try but can't control
what’s true, is what decides.
Despite the rumors, I am whole
beyond a tale's two sides.

Yet there's one vital fact I find,
most fail to understand.
I'm born of choice, and made in mind,
I am what you command.

And once alive, I shall remain
as absolute as fate.
So build me well, I'm yours to gain,
I am what you create.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

Chapter 7
Call it Old Fashioned

By Jessica Wheeler

You won't get a text-
opportunity prefers
to show up knocking

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of Personification.

Chapter 8
Begin

By Jessica Wheeler

The bare landscape offers everything in its promise of nothing.

Chapter 9
What Haunts a Ghost

By Jessica Wheeler

I'm haunted by the ghost
that drains my offered well.
For I've become a host
to what I wouldn't tell.

What lingered on my tongue,
and perched upon its tip,
when words, still fresh and young,
missed every chance to slip.

And now, I feel them float

in tune with every brush

they tickle at my throat,
persisting in the hush.

Inside my veins, they stream;
the echo marks their travel.
They gather at each seam
to tug my slow unravel.

To them, I'm firmly bound,
a well that won't run dry.
Though words may not resound,
their truths will never die.

And though I fail to give
a voice to the unsaid,
if held, they'll always live;
made heard inside my head.

I'll be a haunted host
until my final day.
Then I'll become the ghost
of words I didn't say.

Author Notes Silent Voices: Verses of personification

Chapter 10
Venom

By Jessica Wheeler

The serpent hunts alone,
disguised as flesh and bone.
He's dressed to kill, with scales beneath his denim.

The hiss behind his tone,
entices till he's known.
It only takes a taste to crave his venom.

He warms you like the sun,
and masks his flames in fun.
The temporary rush begins reshaping.

The fixes start to run,
they're blending into one.
Your thoughts begin to cloud behind escaping.

With hunger on the rise,
he feeds you tender lies.
To grow your appetite for what he's serving.

The fear of your demise

is heard in distant cries.
But louder growls the need and it's unnerving.

And soon your life becomes,
the instrument he strums.
You're running out of ways to keep him playing.
You're scrounging just for crumbs,
and suffer till it numbs.
A cost you can't afford but keep on paying.

And now, you're in too deep,
the high won't seem to keep.
He's pushing you beyond the point of breaking.
The sickness that you reap
it penetrates your sleep.
Ashamed of what you'd do to keep from aching.

Unquenchable, the thirst,
and soon you're bound to burst.
The rubber stretches thin, but you keep filling.
You drain a tap that's cursed,
the poison is dispersed.
One day it overflows and just keeps spilling.

And when your heart is stilled,
the pain will only build.
In death, you pass your burden to the grieving.
For once the snake has killed,
it spreads what has been spilled.
The venom reaches far beyond your leaving.

Author Notes Silent Voices: verses of personification

The topic of this piece is deeply significant to me. While I've never directly experienced addiction, I've witnessed its devastating effects on someone I loved very much. As many of you know, my sister was just 24 years old when she lost her fight after years of battling.

The inspiration behind this personification comes from a particular conversation I had with her during one of her attempts to get clean. I remember asking her to help me understand. I wanted her to try and describe its hold on her. Her response is one that stuck with me.

Consumed by emotion, she spoke in words that conveyed a complex mix of deep affection and pure hatred- as though it were a lover she was utterly enamored with yet also despised with a passion.

She would also often refer to it as a snake.

Chapter 11
Winter Keeps

By Jessica Wheeler

A frozen ground
keeps time at rest
beneath the ice and frost.

The bitter cold
of winter drags,
too slow, and I am lost.

The plans we made
eight springs ago,
left for a rainy day.

As winter keeps
the spring from me,
you wait so far away.

I'll play along
and watch the ground
until the lilies grow.

On ice and knees,
obey the cold
and pray it lets me go.

Yet, piercing through
my memory,
are springs I've left behind.

I've walked beyond
the winter walls
that trap my grieving mind.

The winter's keep
was never cruel,
allowing me to stay.

Where I am safe,
pretending you
just wait for me in May.

Author Notes Silent Voices: verses of personification

Chapter 12
Golden Poppy

By Jessica Wheeler

petals of gold
spread across barren fields~
poor soil's riches

Author Notes Haiku club entry

Chapter 13
April Rain

By Jessica Wheeler

touched by a warm sun
the soil stirs awake in thirst~
morning blue wears gray
full clouds release heavy rain
nursing life back into earth

Chapter 14
The Weight of Nothing

By Jessica Wheeler

They linger, lost within me,
just a routeless road to roam,
not knowing where they came from,
or where they're meant to go.

I give no light to follow,
provide no dark to dwell.
I'm a world to wander, washed
of meaning and color.

None speak to my kindness,

and many call me cruel.

Futile assumptions
about intentions,

nonexistent.

I'm felt in absent feeling,
and seen in what's not there,
an echo of the silence,
the shadow of detachment.

I am a vacant
nothingness, yet
heavy is my burden
to those whom I have latched.

Deprived of pain
In my offered numbness
at the heavy cost
of feeling.

Yet, all that is, was born;
with some, I've shared a womb.
though often, a remnant
of what was harmed,
a shell, cracked.

For all that's dead
once must have lived,
and only beating hearts
may stop,
as deepest of emotions
cease to stir.

I am but nothing,
if not an outcome
of massacred emotion.

Author Notes Indifference or apathy is a state of disconnection where there are no strong positive or negative feelings towards a situation or person. This disposition can be seen as a disregard or disinterest and can be characterized as a lack of interest, concern, or empathy towards people or things. In my personal opinion, this is one of the most dangerous states of mind as it can harm relationships, interactions with others, and one's own self.

Chapter 15
Love Letter

By Jessica Wheeler

Send forth your gentle Sun to wake me,
my inspiration seeks your light.
Blow a soothing breeze, my love,
and lead my dance across this day.

While I lay atop and beneath you,
Wrap me in your morning rays.
Tickle all my senses
with your fragrant, emerald grass.

I want to hear your whispers
in the wind and the rustling leaves.
Tell me your deepest secrets
and sing me a robin's song.

And when the midday peaks,
take me across the horizon.
reach out your golden arms,
and warm this poet's soul.

Gather your afternoon clouds
and kiss your splash upon my skin.
Seduce and soften the Earth,
melt me as you melt the soil.
Thrill me with your rain.

Nourish the dormant seeds
buried deep
in your ever-fertile womb.
Mother of Earth, eternally maternal,
humble me with God's magic,
while you cradle the children of Heaven.

Dry your weeping silver
as it twinkles on the branches,
in the faintest graze of Sunlight
peeking out behind your quilt of clouds.
Inspire me with your coming gift.

For it's you, only you,
the architect of elements,
a reflection of creation,
sweeping color across the sky,
to craft a balancing bridge
where the rain may walk
with the setting sun

Author Notes There is a funny story behind the inspiration for this overly dramatic personification.

My husband and daughters really enjoy teasing me about my love of nature. A few times a week, we hike our favorite trail near our home, which often results in my passionate outbursts about the trail's beauty. I mean, that's normal, right? Anyway, during one particular moment of, um, appreciation, my daughter Morgan started giggling and said, "Mom, if you love nature so much, you should marry it. Or at least write it a love letter." And since I'm already married, here we are!

Chapter 16
Sunrise at the Dock

By Jessica Wheeler

As twilight's veil begins to gently lift,
The fading grays give way to golds and blues.
And colors mark the waves as shadows shift,
Reflective of a new horizon's hues.

Yet gazes fixed on distant unseen springs,
Omit the moment's splendor cast aside.
While minds are lost on what tomorrow brings,
The fleeting now is taken by the tide.

But as the morning sun begins to climb,
It scatters warmth in glowing beams of gold.
Embrace this gift of dawn and given time,
As though it might escape tomorrow's hold.

Surrender not a moment to the clock,
But catch the coming sunrise at the dock.

Chapter 17
Crossing

By Jessica Wheeler

the mighty oak
lies across the creek~
a fallen bridge

Author Notes Haiku Club entry

Wabi-sabi - in Japan, broken objects are often repaired with gold. The flaw is seen as a unique piece of the object's history, which adds to its beauty. Consider this when you feel broken. It is a world view centered on the acceptance of imperfection. It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teachings.

Chapter 18
iVanish

By Jessica Wheeler

Blast this awful woman for the things she puts me through,
Casting me aside without regret!
Quick to plop me down, inside a drawer, the sink, her shoe,
Picks me up to once again forget.

Why this inability to designate one spot?
Frying me outside till God knows when!
Hate to break it to her, but it's ME that's getting hot,
Waiting while she checks her purse again.

Stowed in sticky strollers, I've been shelved with spice and snacks,
Stolen by small sneaks with little hands;
Stored with random papers, I've been stuck in knicks and knacks,
Swiped and searched whatever she commands.

Trusted to withstand her hours and hours and hours of writing,
Just to be forgotten at some mall;
Wouldn't it be crazy, super cool, and so exciting
Putting me a place she might recall?

Dare I say, the charger? Kitchen counter? By the bed?
Care enough to not just toss or fling?
All I know is when I'm lost, I'm often left for dead;
Calling sixteen times won't make me ring.

Doubt me, then you're just a fool, to think I'd be so bold;
Pouting, seeking pity for myself.
Best you know my whereabouts, before you think me cold,
Resting here upon the freezer shelf.

Chapter 19
You

By Jessica Wheeler

You made your way
into my arms
and stilled my soul
with just a breath.

You made a rattle
of the moon
and shook the earth
with your tiny hand.

Now days reflect
your sunrise smile
and end with stars
made by your wish.

The autumn leaves
fall like your hair
to emerald grass
made by your eyes.

And all that was
before you were
escapes the view
you've made me see.

You are the wind

that woke the world.

And I was born

in your first breath.

For all I am
is what you made;
I never lived
till I made you.

Chapter 20
Stages

By Jessica Wheeler

Denial

It cowers in the corner,
newly born.
I turn my spite-soaked back,
riddled with resentment,
and pull the thin veil
to sink beneath its cover.
I will not watch it crawl,
but it breathes,
a shadow,
at the edge of my own.
Threatening to merge,
it waits, as I do,
for nothing.
While I ignore its cries,
and mine.
I turn to stone,
silently refusing
the darkness at my feet.

~

Anger

It screams
a piercing shrill

that grips my core.
It pokes and presses
every bruise,

clawing at my skin
with high-pitched scratches.
Enraged, I seize it.
A thunderous wrath
echoes within,
bubbling in the chambers
of my worn-out heart.
Relentless waves crash,
unstoppable,
and a storm
unleashes its fury.

~

Bargaining

Fear consumes,
as the burning truth
nears the brink.
Boiling rage

simmers
to a helpless

desperation.
I plead for a reprieve,
a momentary pause
in the overwhelming pain.
Offering promises,
a compromise…
myself.

Tossing coins,
into an overflowing well,

and watching

as my wishes spill.

~

Depression

Rain cascades
from hollow black eyes,
as its touch
pierces my chest.
And the dam

breaks…
flooding the space
with the pent-up poison
that's been swelling within.
I trade my veil
for a heavy blanket of fog.
Hope is smothered,
as colors dull to gray,
and I surrender
to the haze.

~

Acceptance

It holds me
in its growing arms,
stroking my dampened hair,
whispering comfort
as if to apologize
for its very existence.
It is mine,
born of a final breath
to dwell in my shadow,
and thrive within a void.
I tend to it

as it tends to me,
embracing what remains,
just a fragment

of that final breath
to hold in my lungs.
And I succumb
as it rises
from the isolated corner
to walk beside me,
fully grown.

Author Notes Silent Voices- Verses of Personification

The five stages of grief

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