There Are No Gifts

There are no gifts
Nothing new
Original
None that adequately express
The way I feel
The way that you make me feel

My words are
All that I have
All I have
To offer

I was asked
I was begged
For years
To talk
To speak of how I felt

But I did not.
I could not

Language was absent.
I was a wolf child
In the forest

My voice had been stolen
Stolen by a witch
Of the deep barren wood

I was too frightened to follow her.

It was not until that witch
Threatened to take you also
That I found my voice again

I tore at myself
And discovered words beneath my bark
My voice had not been stolen
I had lost it amongst the jumble of my own self

I do not want to lose my words again
But I crush them
When I grasp them too tightly

They are delicate
I am unfamiliar
Clumsy
As a new born calf