The Quiet

I'm not a loud person.
I laugh and cry and smile,
and I am happy and I am sad.
But I'm not loud.
I hold my emotions close and I deal them out like cards,
only when someone asks and never....
never when I think they aren't ready.
Though I'm a terrible judge.

I'm not loud, not really,
I curl up in a corner every afternoon to do my homework,
and it's loud sometimes,
and I can't stand it.
I love silence.
The stillness that isn't broken
by the roaring noises of sisters,
and animals.

I've never been loud.
But I learned to be,
I used to be the quietest of my siblings,
so quiet and so observant,
I was so observant that I observed
that people didn't notice me.
They didn't see me or pay attention,
I was a wall flower and I didn't want to be.
I was sick of being pushed aside and
treated like I didn't exist so I became loud.
I learned to be loud.

I learned to be loud,
in life and in love and in saying,
in emotion.
I learned that people don't listen very well,
and they don't have good hearing,
so you have to be loud for them to care
for them to hear but some people don't like loud.
They like the quiet like I do and they don't realize...
that I hate being loud.

I hate being loud,
I hate being the one that's always noticed,
but now that I'm loud I can't go back...
to not being there.
To being ignored and my friends having conversations
all around me and I feel so lonely.
I can't...
I can't be quiet again.
and it's tearing me apart.