Quiet

The walls breathe too close, voices crash like broken glass, every sound a jagged edge pressing in on my skull. My chest is a locked drum, beating faster than I can hold, and the air, the air tastes like it’s running out. I want to scream, but my throat is a knot, so I drown in the thunder of everything, of nothing, all at once. Then.. smoke. A spark, a slow exhale. And the storm folds in on itself, like someone turned the volume down on the world. Quiet. Not silence, but a soft hum, a velvet dark where my bones unclench. I sink into it, into the stillness I begged for, a fleeting sanctuary where I can just breathe. And in that hush, all I want is to stay.