Silence, pretty much the same as darkness, has never been empty to me. It isn’t really an absence of anything. It’s more like a constant presence that presses against the edges of everything, it never ever is truly silent anywhere. There’s always something beneath it, isn't there? The hum of the electric socket next to you, the pulse of your own blood swooshing in your ears. And of course the sound of your own thoughts creeping in.
I think that’s why it unsettles me as much as it comforts me. Silence itself carries a weight. It has texture. Sometimes it wraps around you like a blanket, sometimes it presses down like a hand over your mouth.
In my poetry, silence shows up in the pauses and the gaps. In the space where a word should have been. In DEAD AIR, it became the main character’s cage and her threat. I keep circling back to it because silence is never neutral. It can soothe or it can suffocate. It can cradle you or expose you. Maybe that’s why I write, to test how much silence a story can hold before it starts whispering back.
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