The guard

Beware

What refuses to be known

Festers unhealed

Too fragile, too painful

Passed from one to the next

Through generations

Stepped upon

Driven down

The way we do it

Becomes the only way

The guard does not let go

Lets no light in

Let’s talk about it

The things that cannot be said

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in The Precipice, Camille’s third contemporary poetry collection. The guard explores the inherited silence surrounding pain — revealing how what remains unspoken can harden across generations until the act of naming becomes the first necessary opening toward truth and healing.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.