Writing Prompt

Silence is comforting until you realize it means basking in the company in which you are disturbed. It is easier to picture yourself as a hero when those around you murmur in your ear that you are so. It is easy to believe you are important, unflawed when those around you refuse to allow for self-reflection. If you are unable to reflect on your flaws you will never evolve. Flaws? What flaws? Everyone wants to believe they are a perfect individual, one who is incapable of harming themselves or others whether willingly or not. It is blissful to live to unaccompanied by sadness, only achievable if you refuse to stare back at the creature you've created in the mirror. It begs for you. It wails for you to pay to attention it for even a second. It looks somewhat familiar, almost like a mangled version of the self that others perceive. It is ugly, utterly horrifying to look at. The longer you stare at it the more it pounds on the mirror and fractures the image. It does not go away when you shut your eyes; the picture will disappear, but the inhuman noise it produces will become unbearable. Perhaps your ears will bleed liquid invisible in the darkness you have created for yourself. It might reach through on of the cracks and grasp your neck with an inhuman, clawed hand. When its fingers tighten and its nails dig into your untouched skin it will leave you pleading for air. You will feel panic unfamiliar; you have never had to wonder what death might feel like. It will engulf you as it crawls further out of the mirror. Its body is inhuman and heavy, impossible to be lifted or thrown. It will shatter your bones to dust and liquidate your organs until you have nearly evaporated into impercieivable matter. Are you scared? When you have reached your tolerance for agony, before it can even think about scratching a nail through the surface of the mirror, you will flee. The bustling street and the chatter of strangers will leave you wondering if what you observed was real at all. People will not care enough to comfort you. No one will protect you from the nauseating version of yourself that will bring tears to your eyes. Yet it does not matter for the monster will not make itself known in the presence of your acquaintances, and the piercing music blasting in your eardrums will not distract you from what you will experience when you close your eyes and the song has quieted.

To finnish a thought without interruption. To reflect upon the day before it has even started, as it is still dark out, and the birds have only just started waking up in the trees outside.

To listen to your body moving and breathing. Living. Just being. Chest moving up. And down. Up. And down.

Up. Down.

Letting go of feelings felt about times past. Letting turmoil turn into calm waters.

Letting that scene play over again and again. That scene filling you up with sadness and frustration. Letting the sentence be read out loud inside again and again. Saying to yourself what you wish you had said, again and again.

Playing. Acting. From start to finnish.

Until a new scene shows itself. Taking its place.

Being still while the internal theater plays the scenes so lively, you feel you are there now.

How it happened. How it could have happened. How you wish it had happened.

Feeling it deeply.

Have it sink in.

Going deep. Considering, even, that maybe it wasn't even that important to begin with. Perhaps it was not worth this turmoil.

Perhaps there is a simple truth to it. A less dramatic one.

Perhaps.

And it turns from turmoil to still waters.

Only from allowing it the time and space that is silence.

Silence is palpable. It suffocates. It deafens. Silence smells of nothing, tastes like nothing, leaves you feeling like nothing. The outsider lives in silence. His lonely body forgotten, left in darkness.

Raw thoughts unfold, An uncontainable stream of thoughts, Like ink spilled spreading, They conquer the white silence, The silence that never was.

I hear a soundles voice, Low and poised, It scatters unfinished verses Of unkind faces.

Tell me if you hear it too, The voice of silence. Listen to the kind violence Tell me if you fear it too.

Noise stops Pins drop Planes soar Winds blow, Boilers click, Candles crackle Chairs creak, Brains busy, Birds sing Shoes tap, Doubts creep Fears threaten Heat rises Stomachs rumble Words fail

How can one describe silence but as an impossible absence?

Even in solitude, one finds company in the echoes resonating off cavern walls— thoughts we wish had remained in the dark.

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear, does it still make a sound?

Even tree roots scream in silence as they are ripped from the ground, the forest weeping silently for its fallen brother.

If silence is peaceful, it’s because chaos is absent. If silence is distressing,
it’s because an absence is felt.

Silence is the absence of life.

My thoughts they are swirling The cage of my mind is locked And the burning of it all Is turning It’s such an anxious thought That stirs my stomach And knots my guts Where are you I know I won’t say it But I still pretend to.

just like love silence comes in many forms sometimes loud and deafening an icy arrow to the chest so piercingly cold it causes time to freeze sometimes somber and heavy the thickest blanket encasing your form suffocating the air surrounding you until there is not a breath of life left it is the moment before the pin drops anticipation stacked taller than towers weighing you down to the deepest of depths the still lands sometimes it is calm the shared knowingness between souls soaking in beauty beyond themselves an unspoken conversation of appreciation for the moment they take space in sometimes it is in memorium of in honor of a greatness that impacts the very essence of our beings sometimes silence is nothing sometimes silence is everything but what remains consistent is that every time silence makes us feel something more

Joey woke up to discover that the world had gone completely silent. Along with the obvious loud sounds being gone of his annoying boyfriend Robert, gone was all traces of sounds.

No more humming of the AC. No more white noise from the cars on the road or from his white noise machine. No more from his dog Finley as he pattered around the house. Joey realized that silence itself had a sound, a vast nothingness of the void that was now part of his world.

At first, the silence was relaxing. Joey started his morning routine without the background noises to distract him. He was perfectly content to walk around the house using the other four senses he had. However, as Finley came up to him for his daily walk, Joey started to have an eerie feeling.

Would yesterday be the final day he would hear Finley bark? He always took the sound for granted, but in that moment he realized that it was a wonderfully pitched bark when Finley was happy. This was the first sound that Joey realized he would begin to miss.

Over the course of the day, Joey noticed so many other sounds he missed. Along with the trendy songs of the day on instagram, Joey took solice in so many mundane day to day sounds that he always had taken for granted. Sounds like the leaves rustling on the trees, his shoes as they walked on the road, and his fingers as he scratched his head were forever gone.

Robert walked into the room and as Joey began to speak, he realized that in this silence he also couldn’t speak. Robert put his arm out to shake Joey since they couldn’t talk. The shaking became so much more aggressive - to the point that Joey started really feeling it. He felt the shaking so hard that Joey finally woke up to Robert saying “good morning my love. How was your dreams.”

Silence is golden some people say. Silence: my voice, my trauma, my pain. Silence, was death slowly washing over me. Silence as I no longer looked in front of me, but down into the black void swallowing me.

Silence was a response to the extreme daily bullying I experienced for 9 years. This with other major traumas led to, Regression, Disassociation, and eventually Catatonia . No one took the time to truly just listen, or act on what I bravely told them, as a child. Instead they swept it under another dark rug and pretended it wasn’t real. This also left me open for future predators, and there has been a lifetime of them.

Then , they turned around and blamed a 9 year old for not explaining what was wrong? The hospital convinced you to try tough love after I was already being abused. Then as they tortured me horribly with sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, strip searches etc…..you were unaware. Decades passed before we’d truly discuss the hell that happened there.

Silence turned into treatment Resistant Major Depression. ( I still have today) & C-PTSD. Sometimes SILENCE SPEAKS for itself. It’s LOUDER than any words could ever say! Silence, I was almost dead why did it take YOU so long to find ME? I was screaming in a million different ways. I told you what was happening & still you did nothing! Silence is biting my tongue with all the words and feelings I couldn’t say.

Silence ended for the most part, when you and I changed. Silence, let it open up our hearts and our souls. Let it drain the toxicity & pain from us both forever. Renew our love and give us a brand new start. Let God’s blessings flow through us and the water wash away our tears, pain, wounds and bad memories.

I hate to repeat it ,but I pray someone can learn from it. Silence can be truly beautiful if it’s your choice. But if you see something, say something, be brave for the voiceless! It very well might just save a life.