A figure stood where silence breaks,
Where tympan walls and cost collide.
Sixty thousand etched in tone,
For sound denied, for flesh alone.
No plea, no storm, no velvet cry,
Just static breath and copper sigh.
A voice dissolved in spectral haze,
While need outpaced what coin obeys.
We, the ones with padded ease,
Spend breath like silk, forget disease.
But some must trade their pulse for cure,
And wear their organs insecure.
The ear a vault of sacred tone,
Yet poverty carves through flesh and bone.
No crown, no robe, no sovereign plea,
Just silence learning how to bleed.
A witness watched, the moment froze,
Where empathy in shadow grows.
And I, a ghost within that cost—
Of sound, of health, of all that’s lost.
This poem reflects on the silent suffering of those who cannot afford medical care — specifically the cost of hearing restoration. It contrasts the ease of privilege with the raw vulnerability of poverty, where even the body becomes a transaction. Inspired by real-world inequities, it is a witness poem: one that stands beside the voiceless and asks us to listen beyond sound.
