the silence isn't an absence, not anymore, it’s a living thing, a hum that fills the corners of the apartment right up to the ceiling, sometimes it’s soft and holds me, a gentle weight, and other times it just amplifies every single sound in my head until my ears feel like they're ringing, a low THUMMING from deep inside, and it's in those moments that everything rushes in, a strange, vibrant mixture of a joy so pure it makes my chest ache, and a regret so sharp it feels like a physical jab, right behind my sternum, like trying to hold opposite poles of a magnet together, this chaotic force in my blood.