i can hear them.

hushed voices while nobody else around but me what else could they be doing, right? oh they think i don't know. don't think i can hear through walls as they send me out for this thing or that as i putter around having to act oh yes anything you say and i'll go do that right away snickering behind my back as i leave the room knowing they're waiting and listening for me like i'm listening to them but they don't know what i know.

they don't know that i can hear them.

that i've been listening to them as they sit there all by themselves waiting for a creak of the floor a flick of a switch to turn off to turn themselves off back to no talking at all which is really what it is when i'm sitting in the room too. no talking with the talking, while i sit there and watch the mouths move but nothing comes out waiting just waiting for me to get up again and walk out so the talking can start again and having to wait for it as i walk in, to watch the guilty eyes dart back and forth as the half formed sentence slips silently back off the tongue and back into the mouth, waiting there again until i leave.

but what should i just sit there and watch talking without words, the flashing of eyes, teeth around half formed thoughts that mean even less than what they say? just sit and know that when i up to leave they talking starts again as quickly as it shut off when i walked in in interruped them with my being there. i can't do that i won't do that to myself. so i get up again and again and walk out trying to save what little i have left of me inside me, trying to put behind the voices that i can hear when they don't think i can hear the ones that i hear again and again as i walk past them talking them again and again. those hushed voices they think i don't hear they think they can catch before they get out catch them before i hear.

but they can't stop the words and i always hear no matter what they do to try i can always hear what they have to say when they think that i'm not there.