The Cartography of Silence

Listen: not to sound but the shape it leaves behind— a bird's shadow crossing stone, the breath held before confession.

In the margin between two words grows a whole city of unspoken names, each one a room where nothing echoes.

We map our loneliness in pauses, draw borders where language stops. Some silences are gardens; others, closed doors.

The quietest thing is always what we almost said— how it sits in the throat like a stone that might become a word, or might just disappear.