There's a certain silence in the still of night
that shivers my bones.
It's not the usual dry static
of bedroom air and household noise,
nor the wind blowing against windows and walls.
It's silence of the deafening kind,
a numbness I can't quite shake.
I lay in the stillness and my thoughts begin to race
and my heart pops out of place
and the goosebumps start to raise;
little hairs spike up beneath my sheets
and though my eyes are closed,
I know that awful burning in my cheeks.
This miserable silence, it leaves me weak.
The words are there, yet I cannot speak.
This restraint and these constant aches -
I don't understand why these things take place.