The Temperature of Silence

The city breathes in grayscale tonight, a rhythmic pulse of steel and glass. I sit where the light fractures into dust motes, my body arched against the weight of an invisible expectation. They call this grace—the curve of a shoulder, the stillness of breath held too long.

I remember his hands; they were not cold like mine, but possessed that terrifying warmth of someone who knows how to mend things by touching them. He didn't speak much in our shared apartment above the roar of traffic. We communicated in steam rising from porcelain cups and the way we watched rain slick the pavement through floor-to-ceiling panes.

Now, I am a statue in an expensive dress, performing for a lens that captures everything but feels nothing. Yet, under my skin, there is a ghost of his touch—a lingering heat against my ribs like an ember refusing to die out. It is the only thing keeping me from turning into ice.

I lean my head on my hand and let the spotlight wash over me. In this curated isolation, I am healing in secret, one heartbeat at a time, finding warmth not in words, but in the deliberate silence we built together.

Editor: Cold Brew