The Weight of Whisper

The Weight of Whisper

It arrives lighter than lint,

Yet the room leans.

A breath shaped to a syllable,

placed just behind my ear,

and suddenly the table steadies,

The clock stands up straighter,

The window forgets to rattle.

We talk about loud things

as if force were meaning.

But I have seen a whisper

turn a whole life—

like a small hand on a ship’s wheel,

patient with storms.

Your hush carries cargo:

unpacked tenderness,

instructions for breathing,

a map folded into the margin

of my name.

When fear grows teeth,

You speak in cloth—

words soft enough to cover me

without hiding me.

The bite remembers it was once raining.

I have carried shouts.

They burn fast, bright, and brief.

Whispers are different:

they anchor;

They teach the bones.

How to listen from the inside out.

On mornings I’m made of glass,

You choose a sentence that won’t crack me.

It lands, a coin in the old well of my chest,

rings once, then settles—

wealth that doesn’t glitter

But buys me the next step.

People say secrets whisper.

So does mercy.

So do doors when they’ve decided

not to slam anymore.

If there is a weight to this,

It is the kind that keeps a letter

from drifting off the porch—

a stone smooth with certainty,

tucked into the envelope of evening.

Say it again, that small truth.

Let it tip me toward the better edge,

toward the place where quiet gathers

its strength—

not heavy, not hollow,

but held.