silence, it’s not empty anymore, not like it used to yawn open, begging to be filled with noise, now it’s this almost electric hum that presses against my eardrums, and sometimes when it gets like that, when it’s so full of… nothing, it’s everything, you know? it’s funny how the absence of a sound can taste like something, a specific bittersweet tang that just coats the back of my throat, almost like a secret being held too close to the surface, and that’s when i think about how some moments just hit you, a tiny flicker of something absurdly beautiful and heartbreaking all at once, just sitting there, right on the tip of your consciousness, and the laugh that bubbles up is almost a sob because the sheer paradox of it makes my entire chest feel like it’s both expanding and collapsing at the same time, this absolute rush, like all the world’s colors just decided to explode behind my eyelids.