The dark silence of late night
on a cold, suburban neighborhood.
This is the **** that fuels nightmares.
She told me once, a girl I once loved,
that silence was a force worth reckoning with.

As I think of my cold, empty bed,
I understand the truth in her words,
and I realize how much time I spent
trying to fill that silence with noise- any noise.
Until I drowned out the only sounds that mattered.

Goosebumps and palpable breath-
32 degrees is not t-shirt weather,
but I'm just here to learn, to observe.
I'm just a tourist in this quiet hour;
I will take my notes and leave.

Cold, dead cars and slinking strays
populate the streets alongside me.
I pretend that I am invisible,
and that this road is infinite.
I pretend I could walk forever, and disappear.

Really, oblivion is what this is about.
You wanna talk catharsis-
how about a full body expulsion?
I am not me, but an observer
on this quiet, dreary night.

Only a few wisps of clouds
encompass the full moon.
The stars emphasize my unimportance,
and the sky is rather unsympathizing.
Closed windows and dark doorways are no better.

I trudge on, looking for signs of life
other than the abandoned.
Looking for a wearied soul to match my own,
for someone to take one look into my eyes and say
"I understand."

Without the sun to illuminate them,
the gardens aren't nearly as impressive,
and front yards are just a gray area
separating the living and the dead.
Those houses are beyond my reach, now.

I walk on, into an oblivion,
the one I searched for my entire life.
No pain, no thoughts, only this silence.
This ******* silence.
I wish I would have listened to sound, rather than noise.