Dead Letter

I think a dead letter
is a dream someone had
that went unfulfilled,
not because of the obvious,
that it never ended up
arriving, never ended
up read, but because
behind it was an
intention that, in the
dead letter, will never be
read.

This guy I know,
this guy named Bill Shakespeare,
everyone seems to doubt
he could have come up
with those plays
inside his own head.
They imagine romantic
creators, dignified and
knowledge-filled,
but a man who
worked his way up?
Who left his own
story untold? It would
be the greatest
tragic comedy of them all,
of its time too far ahead.

Dead letter,
dead letter,
I see nothing but
dead letters.
Outrageous attempts
to be known,
to be heard.
But since when
did we listen to any other voice
but our own? I myself
am horrified every time
someone tries to
convince me what
my own sounds like.

I protest! I speak
truths anyone could know,
everyone has said,
and for that, I am
called, inside those private voices,
a terror. I am one who
they will not listen to,
oh, yes, when I can hear them,
but never when I can't.
They will say it happens,
but more and more,
I find it difficult to believe.
These are the times
I struggle in,

in the land of the dead.