I've learned the shape of silence
and how it wraps around me
like an old sweater, worn thin but familiar.
I've gotten used to the emptiness,
the absence of voices in the halls,
the way my own footsteps
are the only thing that ever echoes back.
Once, I begged for company,
reached out with trembling hands
to feel another heart beside mine,
but now, I find peace in the quiet,
in the way the air doesn't press
against me with expectations.
Loneliness has become my bedmate,
my closest confidant,
and though the world calls me to break free,
I've learned the language of solitude.
It speaks in whispers and slow breaths,
in the stillness of long nights
where nothing is required of me
but to be.
I don't need to fight it anymore,
this isolation, this distance.
It's where I've found clarity,
a place where I don't have to pretend
to be something I'm not.
I don't have to share my pieces
with anyone who doesn't understand
the beauty of a heart that's
not quite broken,
but just quiet enough to hear its own rhythm.
And maybe that's enough.
Maybe it's enough to just exist
in the space where no one can hurt me
and I can finally breathe
without the weight of someone else's needs.