silence

There’s silence. Pure. Unadulterated. Silence. And I close my eyes and open my ears and hungrily suck it in, letting it tunnel and spiral and dig into the screaming crevices in my mind. There the screaming stops and the silence ensues, wonderfully wanted and needed beyond words.

Silence. Peaceful. Silence. And the screaming downstairs isn’t even heard. There’s no mommy and daddy characters yelling at the tops of their lungs, words like how could you do this to me?what happened to us?how did we get this way? Because no one knows the answers and even if they did, no one would be able to hear them above the screaming. But I could. Me with my silence. I could.

And this nothingness drowns out the sound of the baby crying in the next room. Feed me. Love me. I didn’t ask for this. But I didn’t ask for it either and years and years later I’m stuck in my own room, immobile in my own bed, listening to the fighting, wanting peacelovehappiness too.

No music leaks from the radio turned on and all the way up in the corner of the room. No deafening drums or screaming guitars. No growling voices and sunny fake-enthusiasm ads selling bullshit that no one really wants, and that I don’t want either.

The world’s suddenly clearer when there’s no noise. Is this how deaf people feel? Is this how deaf people see? Sharpened edges and vibrant, vivid colors that make my eyes sting and water… The texture of the carpet, the blanket, the bumps and cracks in the ceiling and the trees waving hello outside but not saying anything at all.

Then Devon’s lips touch mine, his hands staying over my ears, giving me silence. Sweet. Wanted. Silence. And then giving me love, soft touches of lips against lips and tongue against tongue. Calls me his boy, says that I’m his and that he loves me, but I don’t hear it in all the silence. I can read it and I can feel it and everything else goes away, slipping and sliding away.

His fingertips are in my hair, holding me tight and warming me up and his palms pull at my ears with suction-cup silence. Brilliant. Beautiful. Silence. Even when I bend to light a cigarette and blow smoke from the corner of my mouth that finds his face anyway, he still holds on, giving me close-up smiles and Eskimo kisses, not caring that his eyes hurt and water.

And even when we tip backwards onto the bed and he kisses me and I touch him with fingertips and feeling-tongue, he holds on tight and the silence stays. Then I can feel his whimpers and moans vibrating through his chest and shivering against mine, vibrations visiting my own that reach out to meet him.

When it’s over and we’re collapsed side by side, chests heaving and panting silently loud, his hands stay in my sweat-wet hair, drawing circles and making tangles.

I love you he mouths again and again and again and for a moment I wish I could hear it but I want this silence to stay. This intense, exquisite silence.

But night falls and Devon mouths that he needs to go home and he kisses me once and then twice and his hands slip from my ears and I tense, waiting for the chaos that comes moments later, filling my ears and battering my brain, leaving me shaking and shivering and begging for it to stop – the fighting and the radio, and the tap tap tap of the tree branches on my window.

Devon sighs. I hear him. Tells me he loves me. I hear him. And then puts his hands back over my ears and there’s just silence.

Lovely. Loving. Silence.

a/n: fucking stupid ass end. trying to produce something in my constant state of writer’s block.

inspired by the song “late night episode” by september malevolent. voices start up in the middle of the song and then build up and up…and then abruptly stop.