Three Days

I left early.

The music was too loud,

or I'm too old,

or something broke inside my ear

when I wasn't paying attention.

Now three days later

and the ringing hasn't stopped.

It sits underneath everything—

conversation, music, traffic,

the sound of water running,

my own voice—

and it won't move.

It's a high-pitched tone,

a frequency only I can hear,

a sound that isn't real

but is completely real,

a damage that's invisible

but persistent.

My apartment is full of it.

I try to work and all I hear

is the ringing,

the tone underneath,

the sound of something broken

in the small machinery of my ear.

I turn up the volume on everything

trying to mask it,

but it's always there,

underneath,

like a permanent filter

between me and the world.

Three days. Four days. Five.

The ringing doesn't care

that I went to the show

because a friend insisted,

doesn't care that I left early,

doesn't care that I'm not

the kind of person who goes to concerts,

doesn't care that I wanted

to be quiet.

Now I'm stuck inside this sound,

inside my own head,

inside a frequency

that's mine alone,

and the world keeps happening

around me,

muffled,

distant,

filtered through this ringing

that won't stop.