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.

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 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.

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,
unwilling to retreat.

Some only yield to colons:
the instant you commit
before the body agrees to follow.

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.

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

—Tonya Snyder