Being Quiet .....

Silence      By Marisa Bernhard

When she spoke, she didn’t speak with grace or with smooth flow of words. Her speech was always choppy and broken up.

She struggled with words, not because of an impediment of any kind but because it was so much easier for her to be silent.

Ah! Silence a pause a rest.   Keeping her lips resting on top of one another, her tongue resting behind her lower teeth, was one her favorite things to do. She didn’t need to struggle trying to get her point across, or explain herself to anyone, and lastly, she didn’t have to respond to anyone speaking to her.

All she had to do was breathe. Inhale air through her nose, not wanting to disturb her tongue, teeth, or lips. 

She would fill up her chest with air, and when she exhaled her eyes closed; her upper body, torso, neck, and head gestured as if she would collapse into nothingness. 

Again she continued breathing in oxygen through her nostrils and filling up her lungs.  As she sucked in her belly, and expelling all the air out of her body, trying so desperately to shrink into another form.