What Silence Keeps

When silence holds everything unspoken, the waiting becomes its own story.

Sometimes, the breaking is invisible.
It comes softly,
without warning,
not loud, not shattering,
just a quiet split,
like old wood in winter,
giving way beneath the weight
we all pretend we do not carry.

You call out,
but the echoes fold into silence.
No names, no footsteps,
only the hush
of a world that does not answer
when it is needed most.

It is not that no one cares,
you remind yourself.
It is only that care
doesn’t always knock at the door.
It doesn’t always arrive
in the hours most desperate.

And in that silence,
you begin to wonder
if you became too quiet,
too still, too much of a shadow
in your own life.
If somewhere along the way
loneliness learned
to wear the mask,
to call itself independence.

The truth is,
at the lowest point
it is not strength that is felt.
It is the cold of the floor,
the ache of waiting,
the soft collapse of hope
into corners unseen.

And there you remain,
half-hidden in the shadows,
measuring time by heartbeats
no one else counts.

Waiting for a door.
Waiting for a hand.
Waiting for proof
the silence
has not swallowed you whole