What Bleeds Through

I heard it at midnight.

A neighbor crying through the wall.

Muffled. Unmistakable.

The drywall turned the sound into something else.

Something distorted. A particular pitch.

High. Broken. Trying not to be heard

but being heard anyway.

Then silence.

A different kind of silence.

The silence of someone holding it together.

The silence of privacy violated

by the thinness of the wall.

I sat in my room and didn't move.

Didn't turn on the TV.

Didn't make noise to cover it.

I just sat there, holding

the knowledge of their falling apart.

I became the keeper of something

they didn't choose to give me.

Their grief came through the drywall

and landed on my side.

Now every time the wall creaks,

I think of them.

Now I know how close we all are

to breaking.

Now I know how easy it is

to hear someone's worst moment

and be unable to unhear it.