All of my demons stayed quiet
Because we all loved listening to you

(quiet, isn't it?)  

       the air holds its breath.  
               the walls do not move.  
                       the body is still—  
                                  at last, at last, at last.  

but time does not stop.  
        the clock hiccups,  
                        then keeps ticking.  
        the door stays locked,  
                        but the knocking doesn’t stop.  
        the phone keeps ringing,  
                        but no one picks up.  

       (were you expecting silence?)  

somewhere, the sun keeps rising.  
        somewhere, the city hums on.  
                but here—  
                           here, the world tilts,  
                                         the sky folds,  
                                                   the ground sinks beneath them.  

       a mother grips the doorknob,  
                      hand trembling like a faulty lightbulb.  
       a friend stares at the unread message,  
                      timestamped yesterday, 3:14 AM.  
       a lover traces the indent in the mattress,  
                      as if it were a wound that might still close.  

                     they always meant to check in.  
                     they always meant to call.  
                     they always meant to say—  

but meaning is a ghost,  
         and ghosts do not answer.  

       (are you listening?)  

   your name becomes an echo.  
                 a prayer, a question, a plea.  
   your room becomes an altar.  
                 untouched shirts, dust settling like snowfall.  
   your absence becomes a stain.  
                 not red. not blood. something paler, endless, unseen.  

       (is this what you wanted?)  

       the weight is gone,  
               but only for you.  
                     it latches onto their shoulders instead,  
                            vines curling, thick and unrelenting.  

   a sister walks slower.  
   a father speaks softer.  
   a friend laughs less.  

       (you left, but you did not leave alone.)  

       the world keeps turning,  
       the sun keeps rising,  
       the birds keep singing,  

       but for them, the light feels wrong,  
       the sky feels heavier,  
       and the music plays out of tune.  

       (quiet, isn't it?)  

              (but listen—someone is still crying.)

There’s nothing so soft makes me cower
As the ticking of a midnight clock
In this still and quiet hour

I sit, enveloped in the thickest dark
Comfortable and all alone
Upon my mind this echo leaves its mark

I’m free to contemplate without the noise
Of day’s loud vibrant life
I'm left to think of choice

Were it for this soft sound to leave my ear
Then I'd face true solitude
Not sure if that would a bane, or dear

Oh! For true silence, yet I daren’t mock
The quiet ticking of a midnight clock

The city slept, waiting for dawn.
Shopwindows and houses wholly slept.
The moon and me were wandering lonely,
Two sad loners being night windswept.

Nothing will flurry, nobody'll bother.
The night is dark and quiet awesome.
The wind repeats the heartbeat in lockstep.
I'm not in full. It seems I've lost some.

I'm shuffling and the moon is nearby.
I am sick out of this hellish pain.
That night I parted with me in whole,
That me, who forgave with no refrain.

I never minded the quiet.
The way the walls never asked for anything,
the way the night didn’t need me to speak.
I could sit with my own silence,
breathe in the stillness,
and call it enough.

Then you showed up.
Not loud, not demanding--just there.
And suddenly, the silence wasn’t peaceful,
it was just empty.

I started waiting for your voice
before I even knew I was listening.
I started looking for you in rooms
I knew you wouldn’t be in.

And now, without you,
the quiet feels heavier.
Like it knows what it's missing.
Like it’s waiting, too.

I drift, a river restless, wide,
Carved by time, yet pulled inside.
Bound to banks that held me tight,
Yet drawn beyond their dwindling sight.

The wind hums secrets to my skin,
A song of loss, a song of kin.
The waves that call, the stars that guide,
Whisper change—yet fear resides.

I crash, I twist, I rise, I fall,
A roaring flood, a whispered call.
Melancholy pools in me,
But so does fire, wild and free.

The ocean waits with open hands,
Unmeasured depths, untrodden sands.
Am I dissolving? Am I whole?
Or just becoming something more—

A sky, a storm, a silver crest,
The river vast within my chest.
No longer lost, not yet complete,
I am the flow, I am the deep.

undisturbed
by shopping fever…
snowfall is quiet

The wind was howling,
the moon was glowing,
and me?

Trying to glimpse
the stars,
hiding from me.