Listen

Shhhh.... listen.
What do you hear in the white noise around you?

In the dead air between your breaths
as you float from wakefulness to peaceful sleep.
When your eyes are resting in darkness,
and your mind drifts from thought to thought
as it reaches for dreams just out of reach.
But your ears still scout the silence for anything worth noticing.
The air sounds stale in the night,
compared to when the sun shines high above you.
Like the darkness has smothered the life from the earth around you.
A thick pillow clenched in unseen hands,
pressed tightly against a helpless face,
until the struggling ends.

The creak of the house is enough to yank you away from unconsciousness.
If silence is the enemy tonight,
then maybe music will vanquish it?
Earbuds are gently pressed into place,
and you settle down again,
hoping to find peace this time around.

It seems to work,
as your heartbeat begins to slow,
and your lungs move gently within your ribs,
a counter-rhythm to the music you hear.

But within the static between songs,
little blips and shrieks lay just beyond your understanding.
Voices pleading and begging
where no one can hear,
in an airless binary vacuum.
Ghosts in the machine call for you,
the unwilling listener,
to send help,
to look out,
to do anything other than just sit and listen.

Then the next song begins,
drowning out the other voices.
And finally, your mind lets you rest.
You fall into a deep dark pool of obliviousness to the outside world.

The ghosts are gone.
The creaks are gone.
And soon, you'll be gone too.
Because now,
your ears will no longer be able to hear
the nearly silent padding of feet outside your door,
or the creak of it opening,
or your breaths as they're stopped.