The walls don't move, the distance does The ceiling lifts, then crowds my lungs I open, harden, disappear Three kinds of silence gather here There is a version with breathable edges Where every surface lets me through My voice arrives without its armor And leaves enough of me in view The air feels wider than my body No measured angle, no defense I let the quiet touch the question Without demanding it make sense I stay open, still half-guarded Almost honest past control Soft enough to feel the distance Without turning distance cold Same dimensions, different pressure Every inch against my skin I count the gaps between the noises Like a threat could enter in My jaw converts the air to warning My shoulders lock the ceiling down A sound can strike too hard by landing Or cut deeper by not coming out I make restraint resemble power Make refusal look precise Build a smaller room inside me Then defend it like a right The walls don't move, the distance does The ceiling lifts, then crowds my lungs I reach, recoil, remain unclear Three kinds of silence gather here Open enough to let me break Close enough to make me fight Empty enough to keep the shape When nothing stays the same inside One version opens into absence With no ending folded in The air extends beyond my answer Every word returns unheld I hear the size of what is missing Not a fact that I can name Only space without a border Only echo without blame I cannot tell the room to finish I cannot make the distance choose What remains is not a verdict Still, its pressure does not ease Open in my chest Narrow at my teeth Empty past the reach All of them beneath I lean into the softness While the pressure pulls me shut I fill the hollow with resistance And the hollow opens up ROOMS REMEMBER DIFFERENT Not in order, all at once I am near, cornered, absent In the space my body knows The walls don't move, the distance does The ceiling lifts, then crowds my lungs I reach, recoil, remain right here Three kinds of silence divide the air Open enough to show the ache Close enough to bare my teeth Empty enough to hold my echo Against the walls beyond my reach The room is still the room itself But nothing in it stays one version Soft air, hard air, nothing there No single shape can hold them still The walls don't move The distance does
