Keep Our Heads Above Water Poem by Maya Hanson

He'll pull voice boxes out of our mouths
until we forgot we could ever speak,
stretched into strings so we can't help but follow
Can't find your way
if you're not allowed to carry a candle
Can't speak those names
if you're too afraid to whisper
So we're on the road that crumbles
but we can't let ourselves lose our voices

Read my lips so we can carry
scars and mended love to the light
Leave your pen under my pillow
give me melodies to piece together stories
so even if this past is forgotten
I'll have a reason to bleed
We must write
so that our words don't shake to bones
We must write
so that at least we don't drown
We hold letters aloft and voices up
like air tanks and inner tubes
keeping our heads above water

And if we're brave enough
when we're brave enough
we'll climb on top of the lighthouse tower,
spend them like a beacon
to lead the ones without voices to the light.

You have not lost your voices, after all
You have only misplaced them.