I have met silence in its rawest form, not as an absence, but as a presence that lingers where words dare not tread.
It sat beside me in the hollow ache of realization, in the quiet surrender of memories stretching longer than time allowed us.
It greeted me in the morning, slipping through the cracks of a dream I wished had never ended.
It walked with me among friends, whispering the name of someone who should have been there but wasn’t.
It tightened its grip when I heard their name, a cruel reminder that moving on is often just a well-rehearsed illusion.
It stood between me and the questions I could no longer answer, about a life I once knew but am no longer a part of.
It surfaced in melodies, scents, and places that held echoes of laughter now lost to the past.
Silence is not empty. It holds everything, the love, the loss, the longing. It is the only witness to the things we can never say aloud.