Threshold of Silence

All sound folds inward,

a bird’s cry cut short,

the leaves stilled mid-rumor.

Silence is not absence—

it is pressure,

a weight against the ribs,

a listening too vast for reply.

Even breath feels borrowed,

balanced on the edge

of vanishing.

Trees hold their syllables,

branches frozen mid-gesture.

The air thickens,

its invisible throat

swallowing every word

before it can form.

I stand at the center of this pause,

a witness to a language

older than sound,

carved in stillness,

waiting to break.