The weakness of many tellers of tales

She always talks: giving away too much.
The benign immensity of her words he ignores
The secret intensity of his words he stores
He stacks them on shelves and they gather up dust
Hidden and heavy, the weight of their trust.

She looses strength with every sentence.
And though she chooses carefully she’s
Betrayed by vowels and consonants.
Stung by sour regret as those sounds leave her mouth
Wishing he would save her and just interject.
But he’s tongue-tied, mouth dry:
His silence is a shield with which he’s protected.

He can’t expose himself with words.
Instead he makes her read in-between the silences
Expresses all he needs in the things left unsaid.
He belittles her words as babble, conjecture.
So she waits for him to respond to her with gestures.