Silence.
It can be a warm embrace after a world of chaos and pain.
The sudden realization of it all though, of the sheer sound of nothing, now that's different.
When you realize what silence brings.
When you realize that silence leaves you alone and you're face to face with the feelings lurking in the dismal spaces of your heart.
When you're torn from the imagined warmth of its embrace and are shocked back into the chaos that is your mind
that's what true silence is.
You gasp for breath and clutch at your chest to hold yourself together till you can find the glue that is peace.
But even then it's only temporary, this imagined peace.
It's a lie.
All the while you're still grasping for something, anything
to hold onto in the ephemeral darkness.
All you ever grasp are the wisps in the night, but you keep trying.
You keep trying
until finally, you feel the jagged surface of a ledge.
Your fingers bleed but you hold on and you don't care. Bleeding is something you learned to not take for granted.
Bleeding is pain
and in the numbness that your mind and body obliviously welcome, pain is a rare commodity. You hold on and try to use your weakened and battered arms to pull yourself up.
There's no more strength

But you still hold on in fear that if you let go you might never find the ledge again.
The wisps hiss and drift past with a welcoming caress
but you know better.
The only problem is that sometimes it doesn't matter.
Sometimes that caress is too inviting
and you let go..
Just like that.
Your aching muscles relax and you let go with one last sting of pain to remind you

To remind you what real silence is.