Poetry Friday -- Unspoken Sentiments

Today in the last couple minutes of Poetry Friday, I have decided to read a poem from my friend Claire's blog, Musings of a Rhythm Junkie.  I'm reading "Unspoken Sentiments," the latest (spelled that "lastest" just now...) poem on her blog!

This poem has a lot of massively amazing imagery with regards to writing.  I for one am a sucker for poetry/fiction that writes about writing, so the first couple of stanzas in this poem are really fantastic for me.  I really like how Claire makes the act of writing so tangible, affixing words to paper and pinning them down.  The comparison to a hand grenade is particularly vivid because it evokes the idea that words can be dangerous or combative.  But at the same time, the speaker "breathes life" into the lines of poetry.  So not only can poetry give life, but it can also be a weapon used for battle.  I find it interesting that the speaker sees the act of hiding her poetry as an act of protecting herself, but I think that it could also be that by hiding her poetry she's protecting those around her from the power her words hold.  If that makes any sense at all.

The speaker goes on to say that she wishes she was brave enough to voice her unspoken sentiments.  I feel that the act of putting those sentiments down on paper takes an enormous amount of courage and that should also be respected.  The extended image with the butcher knife "slicing and dicing" is graphically beautiful in all of its horror.

PROMPTS:
1.  Write about an unspoken secret.  Does pinning it to paper help alleviate the pressure of keeping it secret?
2.  Write an extended metaphor/image of violence done out of love.  Or an action that stands in for something positive, though it appears negative.
3.  Write a poem in the spirit of "Unspoken Sentiments."  What unspoken sentiments do you foster?