not all there

poem on the loneliness felt in a full room

the room hums like a broken radio, stations overlapping and bleeding together. laughter crackles sharply as if it was electric. broken conversations and jokes without punchlines drift and fade as those surrounding me display their proficiency of socialization; making me throb and ache and yearn with envy. the room grows louder, all teeth and disillusion and laughter too sharp to touch. voices pile on top of each other like waves crashing against concrete.

it all blurs into static.

not silence, not really; more like a bubbling storm of white noise that folds in on itself until there’s nothing left but a buzz under my skin. the energy pulsing through my veins, running down to my knees, my wrists, i shake and shudder with it.

their mouths move like instruments, spilling notes i’ll never be able catch or even fathom understanding. i sit there, smiling, nodding, pretending i can follow the melody, but my body feels like a string stretched too tight, waiting to snap.

silence presses heavy against me. it’s not gentle, not peaceful. it sits in my chest like a fog, dense and unmoving, until the only sound left is my heartbeat. loud. stubborn. the kind of drum you feel in your bones more than you can hear.

someone leans close, words spilling out like water, but they slip right through me. i laugh on cue, the way an echo repeats without meaning or hesitation. their world keeps spinning in technicolor sound while mine stays it's simple grayscale, quiet.

around me, the music plays on, joy rising and falling like a tide stopping just out of reach. i sit there in the middle of it, drowning in silence, the loudest thing i know.

a silence so loud it feels alive. it breathes and reverberates in my core; and i know. the silence is me, and i am the silence. the hum. the pulse, the ache.