An Argument in Forms

Some people believe the bravest thing is to speak.

Others believe it’s to wait.

I don’t know which is right—

only that both leave marks.

This is what happened when I let them argue.

The Arrow

I lose the truth the moment it’s let loose,

an arrow fired before the hand can shake.

What good is sight if hoarded like a bone,

or light withheld until the blood goes cold?

The world is wide; the mouth was made to speak.

Delay is fear borrowing the language of care.

I have seen hesitation dress itself as mercy.

I trust the open wound, the honest leak,

the blaze that proves the thing was dearly bought.

What lives unsaid begins to rot in place,

first in the throat, then in the posture, then in sleep.

I’d rather burn than kneel to silent grace,

than call restraint a virtue when it isn’t.

Wind

Wait.

You keep saying truth

as if the word were stable,

as if it didn’t tilt the moment you touched it.

Which one failed you,

the truth spoken too early,

or the one you kept so long it changed your face?

And who was watching when you chose?

Language isn’t a verdict.

It’s a corridor that shifts when you walk it.

Some doors open on commas,

that soft delay where breath still decides.

Some fracture at the em dash—

the moment thought breaks its own stride,

not ready to choose, unwilling to retreat.

Some only yield to colons:

the instant you commit

before the body agrees to follow.

The Hand

I am not fire.

I am not silence.

I am the hand that chooses the vessel

after the truth is known.

Sometimes I choose flight

because the moment is burning

and silence would be cowardice.

Sometimes I choose burial

because what is living

needs time to harden into bone,

to stop bleeding at the lightest touch.

I have worn both regrets long enough

to mistake them for temperament.

Some words are worn for years,

mistaken for silence.

Then a moment catches the fabric

and the hidden weight

comes back

across the face.

So I decide:

whether the truth becomes

a story,

a speech,

a look held too long,

or a sentence that stops before it does more harm.

Because truth is not the hardest part:

the hardest part is choosing the form it can survive in.

—Tonya Snyder