How Quiet Becomes a Sound

The door closed behind them.

The house suddenly knew it was alone.

I stood in the living room,

listening to the silence,

which isn't silence at all—

it's a sound, a presence,

the noise of absence

filling up the space where voices were.

The light from the street lamp

moved across the wall.

Slow. A car passing.

The light swept left, then back right.

The car moved away. The light was still.

I was sixteen again.

My parents gone for the first time,

and this house was this house

but it wasn't,

and I was this age but I wasn't.

The light moved the same way though.

The same slow sweep. The same pause.

The same fear that if I moved,

something would know I was here.

I sat on the couch without turning on the lamp

because the darkness felt like control,

like a choice I was making,

like if I stayed still enough

I could pretend I'd done this before

and knew how to survive it.

Which I had. Which I did.

Which I might not this time either.

The light moved across the wall again.

I watched it come and go,

come and go,

the way it would all night,

the way it had all those years ago,

the way it would keep doing

whether I was ready or not.