Quiet in an Hourglass

Try as I might for you to sense my presence,
I reach out to touch translucent glass
with no nerve endings in my fingertips,
I cannot tell you what its surface is like,
and you still can’t feel my dark eyes
fixating on yours through the rounded wall
of an hourglass.

Only for you
do I change the settings on my voicebox,
while looking into your eyes through the glass,
turning every noise, (every word, every scream)
to mute once again.
Nothing,
not one single phrase can escape;
(you don’t want to hear it.)

For every day that Quiet consumes me
a laceration can be seen,
squeezing its way into my body like a sly snake,
and infecting every cell of blood that it can find
as I lay across the sandy floor,
waiting.

(The seconds turn to days,
and the years seem like a forever
that will never cease from my existence.)

Each grain of the sands of time
falls onto my diminishing body,
moving through the glass one by one,
single file from above.
It’s as if it were trying to move me along,
or heal all of these nervous cuts
formed by the feeling
of Quiet.

I make a wish upon every particle
that makes its way down.
They fall and hang in the air
like ornaments,
barely moving,
barely making an impact,
gently brushing against my body,
with no intentions
other than to continue.

...and every day I wish I had a voice,
because silence is unlike anything.
All I want to know is,

when will it end?