"The Walls Speak" The year I turned fourteen, Father took me out of school. I scrubbed the floors, washed the clothes. At night, by candlelight, I snuck in my brother's books, dreaming of a faraway land where I could read and write. * Here the fog obscures the full moon and the stars. The sea spins a song of solitude and pain. I wait for my turn to enter the land of the free. At night, by candlelight, I write in a notebook I hide. * On the walls I see poems, brushed in ink, carved on wood, laments of lost women stumbling in the world. I read their stories and weep. * Each time I pick up the knife, ready to etch my words into the wood, my hands tremble and I step back. * At night I lie awake. Will I always be a secret? THE WALLS SPEAK from ISLANDERS by Teow Lim Goh. Copyright © 2016 by Teow Lim Gogh. Published by Conundrum Press, a Division of Samizdat Publishing Group, LLC. Reprinted with permission. |