I don’t like the silence.

The stillness scares me more than loud footsteps, more than unregulated emotions loudly brutalizing my ears, more than slamming doors or the jostling celtic noise I grew up in.

Quietness is the unsolicited promise of an explosion.

Surely if there’s no controlled chaos, the violence will come. 

I’ve never been comfortable, no scratch that, I’ve never been safe in stillness. In my environment or my brain.

I listen lostly all day long.

Never knowing quite where the sound is coming from.

Then when I’m alone, I’m scared of the hush. I can’t sit in it. Not now, not ever.

If I’m not interrupting the voices by talking, the sickening thoughts will slither in my head.

I can hear them hiss inbetween the sentences.

The calm doesn’t sooth her screaming.

I just don’t like the silence.