There is a silence,
heavy as breaking roots,
pulling in words before they can rise,
Before they can reach anyone’s ears.

It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t cry.
It just tightens
a fist in the chest,
a weight behind the ribs,
a whisper curling in the skull:
Don’t speak. Don’t move. Sink.

And so I do.
I fold inward like weathered bark
a house with no doors,
like the kind of ache
that has no name,
only gravity.

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