I cross the rug like it might give way The table edge keeps yesterday Phone face down, still throwing light Through the thin black seam at its side The doorframe holds what I made sound easy Big open vowels in borrowed air Now every word has lost its body And found a place to wait in here No one is keeping score No one is at the door So why does the quiet know Exactly how I spoke? In the room after the applause My voice comes back without a face Nothing here is judging me Nothing here will look away I hear the height in every phrase But I can't hear myself at all In the room after the applause Push it to the wall — it moves Cut it from the air — it stays Every sentence finds a surface Every surface gives it shape I left my volume in the plaster Left my certainty in coats of paint Said yes with both hands, spoke in futures Like the floor could hold that weight Now my jaw locks on the memory My ribs pull tight around the sound I don't need the words repeated I know the force they carried out In the room after the applause My voice comes back without a face Nothing here is judging me Nothing here will look away I hear the height in every phrase And feel it pressing through the wall In the room after the applause Don't make a stranger of my mouth Don't make a courtroom of this house No witness stand, no clean defense Just breath compressed behind my chest I want to tear the echo loose But every blow comes back as proof The throat is mine The words are mine The shame has nowhere else to move I said them. In the room after the applause My voice comes back and has my face Nothing here forgives for me Nothing here can take my place I hear the height in every phrase I was the mouth that gave it shape In the room after the applause I stay inside what I can't change The room goes on holding the air.
