Trust

Trust and silence - don't read too much into silence. Show a little trust. If you don't, you may just lose one, and truly gain the other. The silence will become that - silence. But it will be silence without trust.

Trust is reliance on integrity, when you are deserving.
Silence is the absence of comment or expressed concern -
not harboring secrets of which you are deemed unworthy.

When you do what is right, you expect reciprocation...
Somehow you always know others do not resemble you,
They cannot escape the strangling fingers of deception.

I forgave, even though when I was often stolen from,
My tongue remains sweet, not forked, nor poisoned,
You took, I gave, how far must you demand and come?

I’ve been betrayed, once again, this time undeserving.
I did what was right, in the eyes of God, and even world...
But those close have betrayed with a coldness unnerving.

Trust is reliance on integrity, and you have forever lost it.
My silence was truth, but now it is that - simply silence.
Don't bother trying to fix this, all has been lost, bit by bit.

Author's Note

Written about the same time as "Resigned to Irrelevancy" (I think I was about 15yrs old)...People took my silence to literally, and they distrusted me, wrongly. So, they gained and lost - they gained true silence, I ceased sharing on purpose, instead of me merely being me...and they lost my trust.