Silence-smith

Introversion has allowed me to master the art of silence. I can tell the tone of quiet the way a metalsmith tests the strength of the alloy against at their anvil. The silence of puffer coats is insulated and empty and substanceless like a wheeze. The silence of wind deafens your ear. The austere silence of mountains hang from icicles and coniferous trees like they’re too good for you. I know the unnerving silence of summer, the sudden vacuum that rises from the background and swallows you until it is in your guts, or the silence of ice, thick and woolly and fragile around my racing internal monologues.

I can hear many shapes — the curve of someone’s smile or the round shock that balloons in a room. I can hear many textures, from the wispiness of a child’s sleep to the oily tacky pool of a woman’s rage.

I am learning to use it too. I have grown up wielding the silence that shrivels people, and it was the only thing I knew in my youth. Hostility was something people sensed. Now, I have learnt to also let silence sit between us like a sleepy cat. It is a skill that must be practiced and refined. In a few years, I might learn to use the quiet to heal, spread its balm around my arms and embrace people with its heft. I might carve a silent cavern in the space between words and teeth, to stopper my own or someone else’s voice. I might become expressive with silence as a punctuation mark so you can understand me, and I you.

Sometimes, I wish the world would relearn the language of introverts.