Bring Your "A" Game

I bring my A Game into the room.

Into the dark I bring my quiet. No talking:

A new language to memorize, practice, repeat.

Conversation is my native tongue.

Silence, my least natural impulse. Barbaric. Insulting.

Words idle on the runway, no release from the tower.

He asks another question. I cannot answer.

False assumptions volleyed, I cannot correct.

Brain pain rules this game.

Cruelly whipped, we unwillingly serve

A preposterous circumstance. Poison darts

Of frustration pierce positivity.

We pity, each of us, our wounds.

The victim of disease is blameless

Of all he needs. I’m the victim of all that’s required.

I bring my A Game into the room.