WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THIS QUIET?

There are the days, 

When silence feels louder than noise,

When the room is filled with shadows,

But not a single soul to lean on.

A thousand unsaid words circling like moths

around a bulb that burned out long ago.

Loneliness doesn't scream,

It seeps.

It drips through the crack of ordinary moments-

A song that hits too hard,

An empty chair,

The way you look at your phone every time it lights up,

With a hope that someone misses you too the way you do.

Loneliness, it isn't always loud

It's a quiet ache,

The kind that settled in your bones,

The kind that doesn't shout but

Lingers like a shadow that won't leave.

The quiet that holds you

But not gently.

It presses against your ribs,

Fills your throat,

And makes you wonder

If anyone, anywhere 

Is aching for you too.

And maybe that's the hardest truth of all,

No matter how many people we meet,

How many rooms we sit in,

How many times we laugh loudly

Enough to silence,

The ache -

At the end of the night 

It's just us.

Raman