considerations on silence and truth

not a final draft, but closer to what i'm trying to say

fact: silence holds everything you cannot bare

i don’t believe there is such thing as an empty silence. when i miss you, i recall the thick wall of silence that used to sit between us. born from the things we left unsaid, its presence never faltered, preceding all our sentences and latching on to the end notes of our laughter. but the longer it sat the more dangerous it became; its warmth, once comforting, flushed my face, and rose until the silence as a whole threatened to boil over — i knew that if it moved from its place or either of us broke it, it would reveal all the secrets i have been trying to keep buried in the base of my throat.

today, i’m fantasizing about what would have happened if i let the silence crumble. i bite the insides of my cheeks, i bite down hard on my tongue. silence fills my mouth with the taste of fresh blood.

fact: the specific silence i’m experiencing is the exact weight of you sitting on my chest

i want to ask you if you’re lonely — i don’t. in the silence i feel that i already know your answer, or that you have answered before i even have the chance to ask, or that really it is you asking me and that i have already answered: yes.

fact: the silence is not breathing, what grows inside of it is

we are perfectly different — aside from our shadows. mine, shy and hiding behind my ribcage, mirrors the shadow hiding behind yours. truthfully, i believe they recognize each other, already know each other. when we don’t feel like speaking our shadow selves play in the expansive silence between us, they whisper secrets we are too cowardly to bring to light.

the silence stretches on and on forever in both directions, sometimes drawing my shadow away from yours, sometimes stretching so far i can feel a new, even thicker silence being birthed between them. a silence so layered i can’t tell if i am the center or if i am being carried outward by some ripple of it, away from myself. sometimes i fear i am losing myself before i can get to you.

fact: this silence is too beautiful and fragile to hold

even if i could catch my shadow and swallow her, i wouldn’t be able to make her talk. rather she would not speak in a language either of us would understand. where my voice is tainted with selfishness and desire, hers is pure and unfiltered. i’m certain that if i want to reach you i have to speak with her voice: a gentle surrender to the unknown. i am learning to release this accumulation within, to speak despite the heaviness on my tongue building in the indeterminable silence. i am trying to take all of my secrets out of their envelopes and leave them on your coffee table like playing cards. i am trying to un-secret my truths.

fact: there is no place to hide in this silence

fact:

there is no end