There’s something about silence.
by Marissa Stambaugh
There’s something about silence
that feels like sitting on a spiderweb,
our words unspoken tied beneath us.
A fragile silk bearing our tension,
a shared agreement not to test it.
There’s something about silence
in a room full of people
that makes everyone look frozen.
Every movement a betrayal,
a danger to the ice growing between us.
There’s something about silence
That has cotton growing like a jungle in my ears.
It leaves my hearing to go searching
for the only life that’s left,
the rhythmic beating living in my chest.
There’s something about silence
that smells like lightning in the sky.
The energy I’m not using,
buzzing, buzzing, buzzing,
trapped in my veins and under my skin.
There’s something about silence
that tastes like the morning on my tongue.
A desert growing on my vocal chords,
in the flavor of my voice,
reaching up, like a wave on the shore.
There’s something about silence…
There’s something about silence.