I stood again where my breath vanished
on the edge of speaking
the air too still to carry even grief.
Around me, the world held its posture,
like it too awaited a reply
that would not come.

No flame descended, no tremor rose,
only the pressure of unbroken silence
folding itself around the questions
I hadn’t yet learned to stop asking.

Somewhere above, thought gathered
in a form I dared not name.
Not presence. Not absence.
But something in between,
watching itself through me.

I opened my mouth,
but what escaped me was not prayer, nor song
only the echo of unspent meaning,
a voice shaped more by question
than knowledge.

There are rooms in the soul
where even memory is forbidden.
In those, I build altars of fallen breath,
stacking each exhale like stone
to bear the weight of waiting.

If this is faith,
it does not comfort.
It requires no belief.
Only that I return each day
and listen for what I know isn't there.

Still, I do.
Not because I expect the silence to break,
but because I am part of its shape now
a line in its unwritten sentence,
the soft space between words
curled at the edge of speech.