The Temperature of Silence

The city is a machine that never sleeps, its hum vibrating through the soles of my feet even here. I came to the water to find where the noise stops.

The surface is a mirror of fractured light—shattered by the sun into a thousand temporary diamonds. My fingers break the tension, sending ripples outward like secrets escaping a closed mouth. It is cold, yet it feels like an invitation to dissolve.

I remember his face in the subway's fluorescent glare: eyes that didn't look at me, but through me. Now, I am here alone, recreating that same distance between my skin and the air. But as the water rises against my thighs, I feel a phantom heat—the memory of a hand on my shoulder, a word left unsaid in a crowded cafe.

They call this healing. I call it an aesthetic of longing. I am not seeking to be found; I am simply watching myself disappear into the blue, one ripple at a time.

Editor: Cold Brew