There's a certain kind of silence here.
The profound and total only-in-the-country type of silence that city folk fear.
(The kind that my poor mother back home staves off with television and beer.)

So heavy and complete that even with your head under the sheets it's impossible to keep warm enough to ever get any decent sleep.
It's the kind of silence that pierces dreams.

The kind that a tortured mind can easily fill with demons of every type.
The kind that keeps you on edge all night with wide searching eyes and adrenaline rushes flooding in behind any foreign sound,
followed by a slow winding down of blood pressure and panic and heart beats.

The kind that when you suddenly wake up in it and glance at the alarm clock,
you hope like hell the first number isn't 3.

*

*It's moments like these that make me wish there was somebody else here with me,
if only for the reassurance that a nearby body can bring.
The sound of someone else's steady breathing.

And maybe, a naked back to trace the subtle valleys of while half-asleep,
thinking little epiphanyish-type thoughts that'll be forgotten by morning.
The kind that usually start or end with: "This is it."