The most jarring part of chaos, sometimes, is the quiet. The long drive in gets shorter. The strangers you pass seem few. But the silence isn’t still — it buzzes, swells, and settles, on repeat. It shimmies through the air, electric cricket songs. It cups your face in velvet palms and whispers, “Are you scared yet?”

It lifts your peachy fuzz just one by one, single file, and calls again,

“Can you feel me?”

This still, solid moment before the break. The moment before the salt enters your lungs and you think, “What have I done?” Or more importantly, “What haven’t I?”

It squares upon your soft parts and makes itself, at once, an at home and unwelcome guest.

Unease, riptide, chlorine banks and chloroform humor.

Sweeps me through the day (just waiting, waiting.) Chests that lift and fall, keeping time.

Still alive.

Stoic. Steady. Tick tick. (Tsk tsk.)

Never ready but always armored — teeth on tongue and sword in sheath. Sick, sad blood with nothing to lose.

So when the monster in your closet rap rap raps at the door,

you will never hear a sound…

for I am ever vigilant. (Waiting, waiting.)

And in the morning, if all I am is ash:

all you are is fire and cracked earth around the roots that spit you out.

The dust of the destroyed.

Prepped, fertile, mineral rich

and strong. For the next one and the next one and the next one

who, too, quivers in that silence surrounding chaos —

but who doesn’t want to.

I run through you, vessel to vein and bone to marrow.

The wick that cracks and pops and disappears

so the wax can face the fire,

(forever changed)

but still remain.