Suffocating Stillness

The air is so dense it could be sliced, heavy as lead, thick with every secret never spoken aloud,
Breath catches, not from longing but from the slow suffocation of too many truths locked in a crowd–
A silence that presses the chest flat, more oppressive than any argument, sharper than a slap,
Both bodies marooned beneath the sagging ceiling, lovers orbiting a bed that’s grown cold as a trap.
Eyes open wide in the night, yet nothing sees, nothing dares reach the bottom of this depthless hush,
Old rituals performed by habit–folding towels, washing cups, undressing in parallel, careful not to rush–
There was a time when stillness meant safety, when the absence of noise was relief and not despair,
Now it’s a waiting room for death, each tick of the clock a funeral bell, each sigh a whispered prayer.
The moonlight finds only distance: a shoulder turned, a hand withdrawn, a body posed for sleep,
No comfort in proximity, no warmth in skin, only the endless ache of secrets too deep.
Every word is a razor, every silence a suffocating wall,
Hearts beating beside each other, yet further apart than the miles that separate winter from fall.
There’s no map for this exile, no rescue ship, no plea that can break through the dark,
Only the hope that one day someone will say what’s needed, only the dread that no one will ever start.
Stillness becomes a tomb, a heavy curtain dropped after the play,
And underneath it all, both bodies suffocate–trapped by everything they never say.