Listen to the Silence
Listen to the silence. Can you hear it?
Not as loud as static on a TV, but more obvious
Full of the sounds of invisible pauses creating awkward situations and needed moments
Allowing time to stop for a few seconds before it abruptly restarts
Running in circles around your head, too quickly to be caught yet too slowly to be completely irritating
It’s the rest in the music, the empty house, the second on a swing where you dangle in the air before heading back toward the wood chip filled ground
Causing you to focus while somehow doing the opposite
Silence is the annoying, unwanted little brother you never wished for
It’s the sound of the church you went to every Sunday morning from 8 to 9 until you discovered that you didn’t need to be there
Silence is frequently absent
Drowned by fire alarms, whistling pots of boiling water, shouting students in the lunchroom, and shrieking winners on reality TV shows
It seems clear that noise covers silence
It outnumbers silence by fifty to one, but that doesn’t mean the game is over
The silence is definitely still there
Quietly screaming
Screaming for a way out, wishing to finally gain a victory
Not wanting to be confined by tight chains of laughter, yelling, and fake coughing
So it sneaks its way in when the noise stops even for a millisecond
And takes off on an endless highway of silent laughter, tears, and smiles
Filling those empty hours with an unseen completeness
A pleasant sleep where you drift off into a world absent of troubles
An hour of sitting down with a notebook and writing down everything that’s been cluttering your thoughts
Forty five minutes to read that book you got for your birthday four years ago and never actually got around to looking at
Simply the time to do what you want and be free
Because when it’s silent, time stops
Until you snap out of it and discover that silence is unknowingly its own worst enemy
Defeating itself with its own quietness
Because when it’s quiet everything is full of noise
A raspy whisper,
A floorboard’s creak,
An unwanted thought
Nothing is hidden no matter how hard you try
I think I like it better loud.
Not as loud as static on a TV, but more obvious
Full of the sounds of invisible pauses creating awkward situations and needed moments
Allowing time to stop for a few seconds before it abruptly restarts
Running in circles around your head, too quickly to be caught yet too slowly to be completely irritating
It’s the rest in the music, the empty house, the second on a swing where you dangle in the air before heading back toward the wood chip filled ground
Causing you to focus while somehow doing the opposite
Silence is the annoying, unwanted little brother you never wished for
It’s the sound of the church you went to every Sunday morning from 8 to 9 until you discovered that you didn’t need to be there
Silence is frequently absent
Drowned by fire alarms, whistling pots of boiling water, shouting students in the lunchroom, and shrieking winners on reality TV shows
It seems clear that noise covers silence
It outnumbers silence by fifty to one, but that doesn’t mean the game is over
The silence is definitely still there
Quietly screaming
Screaming for a way out, wishing to finally gain a victory
Not wanting to be confined by tight chains of laughter, yelling, and fake coughing
So it sneaks its way in when the noise stops even for a millisecond
And takes off on an endless highway of silent laughter, tears, and smiles
Filling those empty hours with an unseen completeness
A pleasant sleep where you drift off into a world absent of troubles
An hour of sitting down with a notebook and writing down everything that’s been cluttering your thoughts
Forty five minutes to read that book you got for your birthday four years ago and never actually got around to looking at
Simply the time to do what you want and be free
Because when it’s silent, time stops
Until you snap out of it and discover that silence is unknowingly its own worst enemy
Defeating itself with its own quietness
Because when it’s quiet everything is full of noise
A raspy whisper,
A floorboard’s creak,
An unwanted thought
Nothing is hidden no matter how hard you try
I think I like it better loud.
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