A conversation with no echo

I speak in careful sentences,

soft as folded laundry,

set between us like offerings

I hope you’ll notice.

But your silence is louder

than anything I could say.

It fills the room

thick, unmoving

like air before a storm

that never breaks.

I try again,

this time sharper,

edges in my voice

I didn’t mean to grow.

Still, you nod at the wrong moments,

answer questions I never asked,

miss the trembling

in what I’m trying to hand you.

It’s a strange thing

to feel alone

while sitting inches away.

Your eyes pass over me

like I’m scenery

in a place you’ve already left.

So I start speaking smaller.

Then quieter.

Then not at all.

And you don’t notice

when my words disappear

only the peace

of not having to hear them.

But inside,

I am still talking,

still calling your name

in rooms you no longer enter.

And I wonder

how long a voice can live

without being heard

before it forgets

how to exist.