Echos in the Room

You sit,
a shadow in the corner,
watching words crash
in your head
like jagged glass,
cutting the air,
and cutting 
you.

Voices rise,
drowning thoughts 
You didn’t know you had.
You press your hands 
over your ears
but the noise crawls beneath your skin,
settling in your chest.

Fear coils,
tight and alive,
like a rattlesnake 
waiting, 
waiting.

You shrink.
The walls grow closer,
the ceiling grows lower.

Sound bursts in
through an open window
that no one closes.

No one even notices
the voice in your head 
growing louder.

You tell yourself:

Remember.
Remember laughter.
Remember warmth.
Remember that we were human
before we became 
right 
or 
wrong.

What are we?

Maybe 
We are the silence 
nobody
is brave enough 
to hear…
yet.

And when they do,
it will fill the room,
settle in their chests,
and they will remember
what they ignored
all along.