you handed me a wordless rose, clipped from a letterless bush grown in a sentenceless garden and I was unbearably silent in return. you uttered a grunt, your tongue in your hand and you wanted to tell me something. but you found yourself caught in a whirlwind, with bloody hands to write with and no words to write, and empty mouth to speak with and brain full of ghosts of the words we decided not to say. the blood dribbled from your mouth in cherry strokes and the petals fell from my flower to the ground of our silent world.