The silence after they tell you everything… the shape of it… like a held breath waiting for someone to say the right thing, to break the spell, to make it all UNHAPPEN but I just nod and wait. And in that pause is everything i want to say and can’t, everything they’re terrified of hearing, everything i recognize from the inside… and the knowing fills it all, that i'm not above this, that i'm only here because once, someone else held this same unbearable quiet for me. almost told her: i know. but i didn't, not in words anyway.