Hello ? hello ? hello ?
Anyone out there ? anyone out there ? there’s nobody out there.
This house doesn’t echo ‘cause it’s empty —
It echoes ‘cause I talk to the walls,
and they talk back
with everything my mother,
my father,
my brothers and sisters,
my friends,
and my lovers
never said.
You see, recently, I’ve been sleeping like I’m training for death,
my breathing’s been shallow,
my dreams have been hollow,
waking up just to forget
why I even went to bed… in the first place.
The silence claps, filling the room, — applause for my pain,
and I swear:
even my shadow’s been walking away.
My bed’s a grave I visit nightly,
only to wake up and
restitch my smile nice and tightly,
just so everyone can see
just how happy I can be.
The other day, I wrote a list of reasons to live —
ran out of ink after two.
Wrote “sunsets” and “maybe,”
then scratched 'em both through.
Every “I love you” I’ve heard
was a debt disguised,
a loan with interest
that never arrived.
For them, I know it was just empty breath:
no heart,
no soul,
no vow,
no truth.
Always less, and never more —
just echoes behind this closed door.
As they left me alone,
blindly deciding
it’d be okay for me to love myself
on my own.
They yelled out behind that door:
“James you’re not alone,”
“We’ll always be here for you!”
but no one ever knocked.
Only ghosts with names like Almost,
and clocks that tick and tock in Morse code
for stop.
Tick tick tick—
Tock.
And now even my watch
has begun to mock
the very bitterness…
that resides within these walls.
My chest’s a locked box
where light doesn’t get.
My thoughts?
Wet matches.
That can’t spark—
just create ash.
I choose not to water my plants
like I’m praying they die,
just so something else understands
what it feels like
to try
and try
and try
and still…
not be remembered.
I’ve screamed into the universe
like voicemail—
begging for anyone or anything
to give me the recognition I needed.
No return.
I lit myself on fire for warmth,
and watched
the cold not burn.
This ain’t poetry.
It’s my farewell in rehearsal,
a symphony of silence
in a one-man circle.
I don’t want to die.
I never wanted to,
and I never will.
But I can’t keep living like this—
half death,
half plea.
So when you hear this:
Don’t cry.
Don’t clap.
Just breathe.
Because that breath
represents more love
than I ever believed
was for me.
I only ever needed three things:
I. love. you.
You could have saved me.
This is the poem I competed with at the National Speech and Debate tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, last week.