The Weight of Golden Silence

I have spent three years perfecting the art of being invisible while standing right in front of you. I wear my poise like armor—the crisp lace, the shimmering gold silk that clings to me with a desperate kind of precision—yet inside, there is an ocean pressing against my ribs, cold and vast.
We sit at this terrace cafe where the sunlight filters through leaves like shattered glass, our conversation light on surface tension but heavy beneath. You talk about your new project; I smile in all the right places. But as you reach across to brush a stray hair from my forehead, time doesn’t just slow—it collapses.
The touch is brief, almost accidental, yet it triggers an avalanche of every unsaid word since we first met under a rain-slicked awning five winters ago. I feel the sudden, crushing weight of all our shared silences: the missed calls that meant 'I'm lonely,' the polite dinners where my hand trembled just inches from yours.
In this moment, the air between us becomes thick with an ancient electricity. My heart doesn’t beat; it thunders against a cage of etiquette and propriety. I want to scream into your shoulder that I am drowning in you—that every thread of this gold outfit was chosen because I thought it might finally make me visible enough for you to keep.
You look at me then, really look at me, and for the first time, the silence isn't empty; it is full. It is a tidal wave held back by a single breath.

Editor: Deep Sea