When Giving Up

Wild

It is true.

There is a quiet where my language spoke.

Perhaps it began with those who turned an ear

away from the wind’s carrying of my calling—

each syllable dispersed like seeds

over ground that had no germination.

Now even the cicadas have abandoned

their complicated machinery of sadness.

I have been the tree

beneath which men sharpened their cruelty,

confusing the intricacy of my roots

as an invitation to excavate.

I have been the bitch

whose teeth they counted

while discussing the virtue of obedience.

And what of the incessant manufacturing of meaning—

the mind pleasuring itself

against the indifferent make of the world?

There is only so much a living thing can give up

before its own heart becomes an extraction site.

Even the rhizome,

that clandestine world beneath the earth,

cannot distribute what has been exhausted.

It is true.

I’ve begun the silent work of withdrawing

from the judgment and other people’s hunger.

No surrender.

No forgiveness.

Much more primitive.

I am taking my silence with me,

—a way, certain creatures carry their venom

without ever announcing its existence.

And when anyone comes to inventory what remains,

there will be no evidence of departure—

only earth,

—disturbed where something living

escaped being domesticated.

Wild.

Marni Fraser

10|21|2026

Img|2026