Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2020 finalist, Asmitha Pallath! Asmitha finished 6th grade this past school year. The poem she submitted is called “Speechless.”  Asmitha told us that her favorite parts of her poem are the metaphors she used. Enjoy!

If only I could describe this better,
But words don’t stretch to the length of what I think.
This may seem unclear,
But I am unable to think at you.

We describe ‘nothing’ as emptiness,
But ‘nothing’ is ‘no thing.’
So it’s not a thing.

Maybe it’s a thought,
Maybe it’s a feeling.
Those are not ‘things.’

Words can only say so much,
The purpose shatters into fragments in a human mind,
Piecing together half an image.
We feel tangibility shall not restrain our words.
Cutting corners, rounding numbers.

If there were another form of communication,
You could understand what I’m thinking.
I could understand what I’m thinking.
But even I don’t understand
Because I only know how to think in words.

The root of the tree remains underground,
Right where I can’t see it.
What was once on the tip of my tongue,
Now lies swallowed in the back of my mind.

I try not to think in words,
But I’ll never succeed in my inevitable journey.

The white dove holding my message flew into the horizon,
It dropped the slip of paper once clenched between its talons.
Maybe someday, the yellowing parchment will be read again,
And words can explain
Why words can’t explain anything.