Pressure of Silence

There is a silence that arrives first before the sound before the movement before the decision to continue I am already inside it The walls hold their distance objects remain where they were last understood nothing insists on being noticed and so nothing is I begin to measure small things the angle of light the repetition of steps the rhythm of someone else's passing It feels important to observe even if nothing changes Patterns emerge without permission habits forming around absence I recognize them too late as if recognition itself is part of the design Everything leans but nothing falls everything starts but nothing calls I remain in the center of it feeling the pressure of silence Voices pass through without landing words collapse before they arrive I answer anyway because not answering feels like exposure Everything leans but nothing falls everything starts but nothing calls I remain in the center of it feeling the pressure of silence There was a moment I could have left I remember it clearly I chose to stay Now everything moves too close too fast the space is gone replaced by repetition by insistence by noise that refuses to become meaning I hear myself inside it louder now but not clearer The silence never left it only tightened