the silence now, it's different, it used to be a holding cell for all the thoughts i wasn't allowed to have, a place where the scream settled in the base of my throat, where the ache in my cheekbones from forcing a smile would throb long after everyone went home. now, it's more like a vast, open field, something you run through, something that just is, without demanding anything from you, and it doesn't feel like a performance space anymore, not even to myself, and sometimes i think about the office bathroom, how that used to be the only place i could drop the pretense for a full minute, leaning against the cold tile, just being in the silence that felt like a secret. but the silence now, out here, under the huge, wide summer sky, it’s not a secret anymore, it’s just the space between things, a canvas for whatever comes next, and it just… holds everything, the faint memory of that old tension, the ghost of a cage, and the deep satisfaction of knowing it's not a cage anymore, it's just room to move, room to breathe, a wide-open expanse, and even when a flicker of the old tightening comes back, that instant when a word or a look could have sent a SHIVER down my spine, it just... passes, it just flows right through me, out into that wide-open field, leaving nothing behind but the knowledge that it did pass, and that's the whole point, isn't it.