Raise your voice
by Paige Sheffield
When I open my mouth,
no sense comes out
like a radio playing static sound.
My words filter through ears
yet no one can hear
the things they've ignored all these years.
And to them, I'm a whisper in the noise:
someone who's afraid to raise her voice.
My words filter through the air
but no one sees them floating there.
Because voice is more than what we say:
More than who can hear us in any way.
We wear our words in our favorite sweaters:
they pour like tears on our faces in cold weather.
And they echo through the mountains that we've climbed:
beat through all that we've left behind.
They whistle with the wind and run with our dreams
and waver with the things we wanted to be.
These are our stories,
loud and true:
all the things that we do.
These are our stories
that no one reads:
all the things that make us believe.
These are our stories
that we need to tell
because the world keeps hearing whispers
when we yell.