Read this a few hours ago and my immediate thought was, "this is definitely my favorite of yours". I feel like I say that to myself or think that regarding each poem of yours though ^_^

I felt so many things reading this! The personification of silence was powerful, and unique in how you portrayed silence as being different for each person, which is quite true. It can give peace of mind to some, and others, it can only infuriate and drive them to wonder and ask questions. The part about hallucinations made me immediately think of being emotionally manipulated by someone, or made out to be someone who is reliving things that "didn't really happen", but did.

I also read this as acceptance of self. Where isolation can lead us to perhaps self-destruction, and we can be so overly critical and demanding of ourselves.

And with "collateral", maybe this silence is something that protects the other person. You have to deal with the trauma and flashbacks, etc, but you will live if you stay silent and process this on your own. This could also be a metaphor for bottling every emotion up, as not to feel like a burden to anyone, and we fear telling anyone for fear of being judged? Or told that it's not that severe, because we never explained it before or a particular person will never be able to understand what we've been through.

There's a great deal of mystery in this still, and I feel like the tone is something new from you. I will always say that all of your pieces stand by themselves and are creative on their own, but this even felt MORE so haha.

Enjoyed this!